


Ecdysis

by AbbeyWan



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh!
Genre: Breakup, Domestic, M/M, Masturbation, Modern AU, New Relationship, canon malik and abridged marik are different characters in this, i wasn't sure which bakura to tag he looks like himself but he isn't from ancient egypt so uh, tagging for this is kind of hard but uh
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-27
Updated: 2018-07-27
Packaged: 2018-11-05 14:58:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 23,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11015772
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AbbeyWan/pseuds/AbbeyWan
Summary: Bakura's relationship is failing.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first fic I've ever written!
> 
> I really want to make it clear that I don't have any problems with the Abridged Series, or people who prefer 'feef' to thiefshipping. I've just had very frustrating experiences with similar situations in the past, and writing this was a way to come to terms with that frustration. 
> 
> The breakup stuff is going to run from here to chapter three, and after that things should get much less 'downer'.

Something coiled itself cold and tight around the chambers of Bakura’s heart.

He wouldn’t cry, because there was nothing to cry about. He was positive there was nothing to cry about. His breath could die in his throat, his eyes could burn, but Bakura was not going to cry.

He lay in bed with his knees curled tight to his chest, carefully counting his breath as he tried to think of an exit strategy.

It was only two in the morning, which meant Ryou was probably still up and gaming. In a desperate bid to _not cry, not cry, not cry_ , he dialed his brother.

“Mm, hello?” Ryou’s voice was high and breathy and Bakura nearly hung up. “Uh, Kura? Is um- is everything alright?”

“Y-yeah...Yugi’s there, isn’t he, I’ll-“

“He’s here, yeah.” Ryou giggled and Bakura felt the burning in his eyes grow more insistent, “but its fine, uh. You don’t call at two in the morning unless something’s wrong. He’d hate me if I didn’t talk to you. What’s wrong?” His brother was too polite. Bakura could feel it hanging in the air: ‘ _This isn’t like you. You’re loud and unapologetic and you’ve never tried to give me personal space in your life. What the fuck is wrong with you?’_

It was hard to speak, the pressure of hyperventilation a looming threat, “Nothing. Really.” It was nothing. “Sebi left.”

Bakura heard rustling, a pause, and then a door closing. Ryou had moved into the hall to give them some privacy. “He left? Do you mean he left-left? He left you?”

“No.” That was the problem. There wasn’t a problem. “No, we’re-” Perfect. Sebi couldn’t be happier. He’d left after a long laundry list of traits he admired about Bakura, and a promise of a date on Friday after he got off work. “He doesn’t stay. It’s normal. I’m being stupid.”

“He isn’t mad at you or anything?”

“No. I think I just. I think I panic.” Thank every god alive or dead that Yugi was in the other room, because Bakura’s brother was the only person alive allowed to hear an admission like that.

“Okay. Uh.” Ryou was perceptive. Ryou was a saint. Ryou was not a mind reader. “Breathe. Maybe make yourself some tea? I think it’s too late for me to give you any good advice. Why don’t you come over to visit tomorrow?”

“Yeah.” Bakura dropped the call before Ryou could try to find an awkward way to say goodbye. He could feel the nails of his free hand digging deep into his calf, and knew it would leave marks.

 

* * *

 

 

“You look like shit.”

Bakura shrugged and nodded his agreement. He had spent most of the night watching gaming streams and passed out an hour before his alarm for work. His stomach wouldn’t settle, so he hadn’t eaten, and he’d spent most of the day stocking shelves and dodging customers. His hair was a mess, there were bags under his eyes, and he had thrown on dirty clothes from his floor to make the trip to Ryou’s. “I feel like shit. Is Mai coming over for games night soon?” Bakura tossed a duffel bag onto Ryou’s coffee table as he asked.

“Probably Friday, why?”

“I stole tampons. Like a lot of tampons.” He unzipped the bag as he sat down, and showed off its contents.

Ryou sat and stared at the tampons with him. “Kura, why did you steal so many boxes of tampons?”

“They’re really bulky and really expensive and I wanted to see if anyone at work noticed, and they didn’t notice the first few, so then I figured I’d just see how many I could get until a supervisor mentioned something.”

Ryou had started stacking them on the coffee table, presumably counting. “Don’t steal more tampons.”

Bakura leaned back in his seat, “I got bored of tampons. I’m pretty sure teenagers steal them all the time, so nobody noticed.”

“Stop stealing things at work _in general_. You won’t be able to get a replacement job.”

He nodded as though he took the suggestion seriously.

Ryou kicked his feet up onto the table next to the tampon pyramid, and Bakura was positive he saw half a laugh almost break through. “I guess Mai should appreciate sixteen boxes of super absorbent tampons.”

Bakura barked a single dry laugh. “Not as much as seventeen boxes.”

Ryou slapped at his shoulder in response. “So, Sebi.”

“Sebi.” That cold coiling feeling was back, and with it came the nausea. Bakura sighed and sank further into the couch.

“Help me make coffee.” Grabbing at the same shoulder he’d just slapped, Ryou slid gracefully from the couch. His brother was something of an expert- he knew Bakura was more likely to talk if he was working on something at the same time.

Ryou ended up sitting at the kitchen table while Bakura went through all the motions of brewing coffee. He had pulled out a Sudoku book, another trick to take the pressure off of Bakura, “I thought everything was great with Sebi.”

Bakura sniffed the grounds still sitting in the filter. They couldn’t have been more than a day old. He dumped and replaced them without bothering to wash it. “Everything is fine with Sebi.”

“’Kura, you don’t sound like everything is great with Sebi.”

Why did Ryou always have light roast? It was obscene. “It’s probably me. You and Yugi fit together so easily. I’ve never practiced _dating_ , and now I’m doing everything wrong.”

“You’re happy when you’re with Sebi, right?”

Bakura bobbed his head to the side in neutrality. “I usually am. But he’s busy, and when he isn’t around-” He held back, because he felt like he was on the verge of blasphemy. What did he feel when Sebi wasn’t around? Desperate, cold, alone? Relieved, because he was always on the precipice of a mistake around Sebi? He was being pulled in too many directions. “I don’t think I can handle a relationship right now. There’s too much I don’t know how to do right.”

The buzz of the coffee machine startled him, and somehow Ryou was already beside him with mugs. “I’ll talk to Yugi about it.”

For once, Bakura didn’t have enough fight to turn down some help from Yugi.

 

* * *

 

 

_‘:( I heard about Sebastian, I’m sending u some links:’_

The phone buzzed several more times, but Bakura had already tossed it to the floor. He was a little preoccupied with jacking himself, and the last thing he needed to think about right now was the guy his brother was sleeping with sending relationship advice.

He usually tried to avoid thinking about Sebi, too, because Sebi made it seem like a violation somehow. Sebi wanted to be _sexy_ , and he made sure to tell Bakura that he was also _sexy,_ but the moment anything got too _sexual_ , he stopped responding.

Nope- this was not the time to think about Sebi shooting down innuendos, or Sebi getting bored and heading to the kitchen the moment Bakura lowered his defenses enough to get a little handsy. Bakura was _not_ about to get cheated out of his own sad cheap orgasm by Sebi’s hangups.

Drawing a bit of inspiration from Ryou’s hentai collection was usually easier.

_A great obsidian demon lord looms above, eyes glowing red like the fires of hell. It doesn’t really matter what Bakura feels in this moment, he’s just an amusement for this immense and powerful being. Gold- Bakura is covered in stolen gold, just to be sure that he’s pretty enough for his demon lord._

_Bakura should probably feel more embarrassed than he does, that this is where he goes when he has to, that he always plays the role of the screaming anime chick covered in tentacles, or held down by demons, told to masturbate for their alien curiosity, or any number of other humiliating roles. He doesn’t though, not really, and that tiny kernel of humiliation he does feel makes the fantasy that much more overpowering._

_His demon lord should have a huge cock. Something that doesn’t even know how to go flaccid. While Bakura’s hand speeds up, the haze of nearly-there stupidity suggests it should be a fire breathing dragon cock. It’s the most ridiculous thing he’s ever imagined, but somehow it’s the thing that pushes him over the edge. What if his massive demon lord actually asked him to take the whole thing?_

He stared in the general direction of the ceiling for a long time, catching his breath. His fantasies had been getting pretty fucked up lately.

Bakura groaned as he cleaned himself up and searched the floor for his phone. There was no way he was going to ask Yugi to psychoanalyze his sex fantasies, but he trusted the guy to have decent advice on dating.

 

* * *

 

 

It was a wonder Yugi had time to do anything else, if the articles he had sent were at all indicative of his reading preferences.

There were tedious quizzes about love languages, and personality, and ‘how much work are you actually doing for your relationship’. The quizzes led into long articles assessing what his answers had meant, and what his best guess answers about Sebastian meant. Bakura used Yugi’s email address, to ensure that he wasn’t the one getting spam for the next five months, only to realize that Yugi would be getting detailed descriptions of Bakura’s love life almost immediately along with the spam.

Bakura liked physicality. Sebi probably liked ‘gifts’ or ‘words of affirmation’, if Bakura was guessing right. According to that resource, all he really needed to do was start trying to pretend he was good at that mushy stuff, and Sebi would be able to come around and understand what Bakura was trying to ask for.

They didn’t seem to fit any ‘red flags’ from the lists Yugi had sent. He was supposed to express himself more. He was supposed to be more giving and less needy. He needed to let go of petty arguments more. It would be best if he tried to be more independent.

None of the articles discussed the emptiness of not being sure your partner wanted you. None of them mentioned ways to make sure he hadn’t secretly decided he was straight, because he was so unwilling to talk about his sexuality.

At the end of it all, Bakura decided he could do better on his own. His case was too complicated for Yugi’s resources.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has the actual breakup, so heads up on that. It isn't especially messy, but there's some arguing and all that kinda stuff. Sebi wasn't really meant to be a major character, but I did want to get some scenes with him in before moving on to the bulk of the story, rather than start post-breakup. 
> 
> I did have some fun messing around with flipping the tired trope of 'white character acts like totally normal traits for a non-white character are super exotic'. Abridged Marik talks about tanning a lot, so since Sebi isn't the real Malik in this story, I messed with his biography a bit. Real Malik's coming, y'all, just give me a bit.

Everything was in soft focus.

Sebastian’s feet were in Bakura’s lap, and he massaged gentle circles into them. Sometimes Bakura would look up, worried that somehow this had been going on for far too long, but Sebastian’s attention remained on the movie they were watching.

Bakura was on his third beer, and he hadn’t paid enough attention to the movie to start worrying about it now. Stillness and warmth had lulled him into a sense of security he had been lacking of late. The world felt _right_. Sebastian was beautiful, and he trusted him with his feet, and the world was _right_.

There were tan-lines from sandals between Sebastian’s toes, and after all this time spent with a boy who tanned, Bakura still found them fascinating. Ryou was paler than Sebastian, but he just burned and lost the color immediately. Most of their other friends did get darker in the summer, but Bakura had never really paid as much attention with them as he had Sebi.

Sebi must have felt him tracing the lines, because he pulled his feet away with a dramatic sigh, turning to look down the couch, “Augh, yes, I know. I should have just gone barefoot. One day of shopping and my feet look ridiculous.”

“I think its b-”

“Listen Ba- _kor_ -uh,” almost a year and Sebastian’s American mouth still couldn’t do it right, “whatever weird thing you were going to say, don’t do it. I know it’s weird, I just have trouble keeping my color.”

Bakura had learned a long time ago that Sebastian’s mental image of himself didn’t quite line up with reality. If he was normally paler, that was his color, right? He assumed it was an American thing, maybe some sort of guilt over being ‘too white’ around Bakura.

“Well, I guess you’ll just need to do a session at the tanning salon.” There was no use in fighting Sebastian over beauty routines. Bakura didn’t give a shit about Sebastian’s beauty routines, but they kept Sebastian happy. Suggesting that Sebastian looked fine any time he felt something was wrong was just a good way to start an argument, and Bakura wasn’t ready to break the moment with an argument about whether tan-lines looked gross or beautiful after a few beers and a bit of skin contact.

Sebastian hummed his agreement, and stood up rather than putting his feet back. “We need popcorn.”

Bakura smashed the paranoia as fast as it tried to rise. Sebastian wasn’t escaping to the kitchen again just because he’d caught himself letting Bakura rub his feet. “Grab me another beer while you’re out there.”

“You already have one.”

“Had.” Bakura chugged the bottom half of his beer just to be stubborn.

“Jeez Bakura, you’re gonna get yourself drunk.”

“You’ll love me when I’m drunk. Last time I taught Ryou how to crack a single-dial padlock.”

 

* * *

 

 

After the fourth beer, Bakura had insisted on switching to vodka. After three shots of vodka, Bakura had sprawled his way across the couch to Sebastian’s side, and Sebastian had allowed it. The entire world was like a warm bath, and Bakura nestled deep into Sebastian’s hair. Soft, blond, real blond- not like Bakura with childhood malnutrition to blame for early onset _platinum_ gray, nor the brittle orange bottled blond of punks like Jonouchi. Sebi had soft, foreigner, freakish American blond, and Bakura was the idiot who liked to bury himself in it. “You smell like anise.”

Sebastian giggled. He’d only joined Bakura on the shots, and he was so much taller than Bakura, he couldn’t be nearly as drunk. “Anus? I smell like anus?”

“ _Anise._ ” How dare Sebi make it dirty the one time Bakura was trying to be romantic. “Like licorice.”

“Oh, that’s my cologne. It’s _man_ -dy shop, so you can have candy scents without buying women’s perfume.”

“I don’t care what it is, idiot, wear it more often.” It would be easy, Bakura decided, to curl up and die right there in a haze of anise and sweat. “You could do whatever you wanted to right now.”

Sebastian shifted underneath him, and Bakura was slow to catch why. Sebastian’s hands intervened to pull Bakura’s face into position, and there was a jarring clash of noses, and then Bakura realized they were kissing.

They were kissing, and Bakura was warm, and the world smelled like anise, and he was just dizzy enough to feel the universe spinning over their heads, and he was positive he was going to ascend to the heavens any second now.

Sebi shifted, and Bakura bucked forward, and Sebi shifted again, and gravity did something strange, and then Sebi was standing over Bakura, and Bakura was laying on the couch by himself, and Sebi let go, and said “Call me in the morning so we can go out.”

 

* * *

 

“It wasn’t my fault; it wasn’t his fault- he probably just got freaked out. We were drinking; he’s really good about not doing anything when I’m drunk.”

Bakura sat with his face pressed against the cool wood of Ryou’s kitchen table. He had turned down Sebi’s request to go out, claiming a terrible hangover. His first thought when he’d woken up in the morning was that he needed more help than Yugi’s relationship links were about to provide.

Ryou was making coffee and rice. He had an apartment full of gaming nerds to take care of, and Bakura didn’t feel like turning up unannounced was going to cut into his morning much. He wasn’t looking up at Bakura; he just kept shuffling around the counter.

 “Yugi showed me the results from your-”

“Yeah, that was me trying to spam his inbox.”

“Are you sure you didn’t want us to see-”

“I thought I heard the Tampon King!” Ryou startled at Mai’s entrance, but Bakura just buried his face deeper into the table, groaning. His brother had too many _helpful_ friends, and the last thing he needed was another one poking her nose through his personal baggage.

“Nice to see you too, ‘Kura. Get up, we’re getting doughnuts.”

“Oh, Mai!” Ryou waved frantically for her to stop, “Don’t worry about it, I already have breakfast started.”

“Yeah, but I need doughnuts. And I need your brother. It’s too long a walk to not drag someone with me, and everyone else is passed out, and you already started breakfast.”

Ryou shifted on his feet, twisting a dishtowel in his hands, “’Kura, you could just keep the rice from burning if you would rather stay here.”

Bakura dragged his face hard against the table on his way up. “I’m not babysitting your damn friends. I’ll buy doughnuts.”

 

* * *

 

 

She handed him a pair of cheap plastic sunglasses as soon as they stepped outside. He was about to give them back, but she was already wearing her own pair. “Sweetie, I have like ten of those in my purse. Pink’s your color, keep ‘em.”

He was going to pretend they were light red.

For almost an entire block she kept quiet, and he started to get optimistic about his chances of not needing to talk about his relationship for a minute.

“Yugi showed _everyone_ your results from those stupid quizzes he sent you. Honda and Jonouchi made fun of you for wanting more cuddle time, but I told them they were idiots and made something up about how being good at sex makes you want more sex, and since they’re terrified of my _sexual prowess_ they backed off.”

He grunted and shoved his hands in his pockets.

“You need to break up with him. You’ve figured that out, right?”

Rather than confront whatever expression she was making, he spoke to the telephone lines, “I think I can still fix it.”

She was quiet for another block.

“You don’t steal from work. You don’t break down in front of Ryou. They aren’t like us, and they think they’re taking care of you, but it’s all bullshit.”

“You didn’t know me when I was younger; I used to steal all the time.”

“The only thing you’ve stolen in three years is Duel Monsters cards to help me win unboxing tournaments. I don’t care what you stole in high school when Ryou wasn’t looking, and I don’t care what kind of reputation you want to have with the rest of them.”

“It’s not just tournaments! I pulled a guy’s wallet for calling my brother a f-”

“Okay! You still don’t steal convenience store tampons!”

True. He wouldn’t mention the candy bars he grabbed sometimes to justify putting up with his boss’ shit.

“So can we both agree that you’re itchy because everything with Sebi is a mess, and you want to show the universe you’re still cool?”

He opted to make a noise that could have been an agreement.

“How bad is it?”

“I can’t tell. He says a lot, and we spend a lot of time together. I really like the time we spend together. He’s funny, I laugh a lot - it all feels great. When I say something, he’ll flirt back. It all looks great until he shuts down. That’s why I’m at Ryou’s place whining instead of cooking breakfast with Sebi at home.”

“How often does he do this?”

“He usually leaves before things escalate so much. I made it weird last night.”

She snorted at that. “You asked him how he felt about vibrating buttplugs? From what I overheard earlier, it sounded like you tried to make out on the couch in the middle of a movie.”

He was normally the kind of guy who didn’t blush at ‘vibrating buttplug’, but hearing her talk about making out on a couch was making him a little nervous. “Yeah, but that’s kind of a lot for us.”

“Okay, you’re gonna hate this question. I’m older than you. I get to ask this kind of stuff.” She paused, waiting for him to give her permission to keep digging.

The best he could do was laugh. “I hate all of it. You’re the bitch who thinks she can fix it.”

“He’s not out – does he actually like men?”

Bakura laughed harder. “Fuck. Fuck if I know. You’ve heard him talk about gay stuff. I’m his ‘special case’. He doesn’t have celebrity crushes. He wants to be hotter than Lady Gaga, but I don’t think that means he’s into _her_. I’m not sure _he_ knows what he’s into.”

“After a year? You aren’t teenagers anymore; you’re too old for games like that. You’re not an experiment, or an exotic fling, or a special toy, Bakura. You can’t put your life on hold forever while he refuses to get his shit together.”

“But it’s like, _fuck_ ,” he groaned, “He’s never dated men before. I’m the asshole who dumps him for being new to this stuff? What kind of prick makes sex an ultimatum?”

“Sweetie. I’ve tried straight girls. He’s doing the same old shit: _‘You’re so pretty, and we can still talk about boys together, and oh my god it’s just like best friends with benefits’_. You’re not a kid, you _like sex,_ and you don’t owe it to him to wait around for him to figure himself out. Give me your phone.”

“What?” He stepped back as she made a swipe at his pockets. “You can’t call him!”

“We’re almost to the doughnut shop. I’m going to dial his number. _You’re_ going to talk to him while I’m in there. Break up with him, ask him what he’s into, tell him you can’t date a straight boy, I don’t care – but you’re breaking your stalemate while I’m in there.”  

He surrendered the phone, and she pointed out the shop while it rang. Bakura heard Sebi answer, surprised, before she shoved it into his hands and left him to it.

 

* * *

 

 

“Bakura?? I thought you were sick. I’m out right now. Do you need me to swing by, or something?”

“I,” he rubbed his eyes underneath the cheap sunglasses and leaned hard against the wall of the building behind him. “I think I’m done, Sebastian.”

“Done being sick?”

He considered just chucking his phone into traffic. “No, Sebi, done with _us_.”

Sebastian laughed, “What? Like-”

It reminded him a lot of killing chickens for dinner in his old life. Best speed it up. “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking and I don’t think we work, and-”

“Are you breaking up with me _on the_ _phone?”_   Yeah, of course the phone part would be the thing to make him indignant.

“I don’t know! I’m on the phone, and I’m talking! I wasn’t ready!”

“What the _fuck,_ Bakura?!”

“Sebastian, I can’t just- I didn’t come out so I could be celibate! I- _fuck_! I tried, Sebi, I tried. You freaked me the fuck out last night!” Bakura was yelling now, and people were slowing down to stare as they walked by.

“I didn’t do anything! You’re being stupid!”

“ _No!_ You _didn’t_ do anything! You never do anything!” He had stood back up from the wall, and was leaning over the phone to yell into the speaker while his free hand gesticulated wildly, “You can’t even turn me down, you just disappear!”

He noticed Mai pushing the door open to come back outside, before changing her mind and retreating. He flipped the bird with his free hand the moment he saw her peek through the window.

“I was supposed to know what you wanted from me last night? I was being respectful!”

“ _You were supposed to want it too! Ever!”_ Despite the ringing in his ears, Bakura was sure he heard his voice was cracking, _“_ Stop _respecting_ me! Drunk, sober _, ever!_ Am I _that fucking ugly_?”

“You’re no ten, jackass, and I get numbers from girls all the time, I should know.”

“Yeah, well go and _don’t fuck_ them then, have a blast!” Good. Done. They were done. Bakura dropped the call, and yelled at his phone just long enough to remember people were still staring. He sat down, right there on the sidewalk, and leaned against the wall again.

Mai, still watching through the door, noticed he was done. She was a little slow crossing the street, and kept looking around at the dispersing rubberneckers. “…Tissue?”

“Tissue?”

“You’re crying.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's the mopiest chapter! 
> 
> It has a lot of wallowing, and some talk of family death. That's about it, really. 
> 
> Hoping to have ch. 4 added soon, so that this isn't the most recent one available for too long.

Once Mai had gotten him back to Ryou’s apartment, Bakura kicked Anzu and Shizuka out of the spare bedroom and curled up in the dark with an entire box of doughnuts. She had known not to ask for details on the walk back, and had so far done a very good job of keeping everyone else from checking on him.

Ryou kept his apartment clean and bright. Even with the lights turned off, the spare bedroom was well lit through clean windows, and the soft blues and whites of the walls and furniture felt unwelcomingly cheerful. It would have to do.

The problem was, Bakura was almost positive he might be the worst person on the entire planet.

Nobody broke up over this kind of shit, except maybe some douchebags who thought their girlfriends owed them something. Bakura was apparently that kind of douchebag.

Why would he break up with Sebi over not wanting to touch him? It wasn’t like he was going to find someone new. Bakura was bad with people, he had lucked out when Sebi had decided his weird knife tricks were interesting and shoehorned his way into his life. Other people might line up for someone gorgeous and outgoing like Sebi, but nobody wanted to be with a short, rough looking asshole like Bakura. Bakura had just downgraded himself from dissatisfied to eternally lonely.

There was a soft knock on the door.

“I don’t want any!”

Ryou slid into the room with a glass of ice water. Bakura pulled a blanket over his head in response.

There was a long pause, “I’m not supposed to ask yet, but I’m leaving this on the desk. Drink it.”

He heard his brother leave, but he didn’t resurface. Burrowing under the sheets was comforting. He pushed the cardboard doughnut box over to the other end of the bed, and let himself wallow.

 

* * *

 

 

_Bakura idly flipped his switchblade open and shut as he and Ryou stood in the middle school parking lot._

_“You should put that thing away, Tou, you’ll get arrested.”_

_Bakura laughed, twirling it in hand. He was too familiar with the weight of this one to worry about making mistakes. “You scared?”_

_“If I was scared, I’d have told dad you bought it.”_

_The statement managed to sober Bakura a bit, “You won’t tell him, right? He doesn’t get it.”_

_Even in Japan, Bakura rarely felt safe. His adopted family had enough money for a nice, clean, large apartment right in Domino. They always had food. Bakura could ask for new clothes any time he needed them. It was a strange feeling for someone whose face was fucked up because he’d been stabbed over the rights to sleep under a convenient bit of shelter._

_“I don’t get it either, but I’m trusting you.”_

_“Yeah, and you’re one of the only people_ **I** _trust. I’d use it to help you out, too. I won’t let them take another family from me.”_

_Bakura knew he had to be dreaming now, because he never admitted that to Ryou when they were kids. Ryou must have figured it out on his own somewhere along the way, but Bakura never said it._

* * *

 

Ryou was gently shaking him awake, and Bakura came to with a jolt of panic. He had a horrible sinking feeling, as though something had gone terribly wrong. Ryou had already started talking while he tried to shake himself out of his disorientation.

There were dark circles under Ryou’s eyes, and his hair was messy, as if he had been pulling at it more than usual. “Everyone else has left now, so it’s okay if you want to go to the kitchen or something. Or talk.”

Bakura didn’t feel like he had the energy to move. He followed his brother with his eyes, but didn’t do much more than that, “How much did Mai tell you?”

“Just that you ended it.” Ryou seemed hesitant to sit down, “Are you okay?”

Bakura buried his face into the sheets, “I’m just exhausted. I don’t know.”

“Okay.” Ryou gave him a quick hug. Bakura tolerated it, though he kept his body limp. The guestroom was stuffy, but Ryou’s warmth wasn’t unwelcome. “I’ll be back. Drink that water from earlier.”

 

* * *

 

 

_They were in the parking lot again, this time it was raining. Bakura was fascinated by the way the water ran down the edge of his knife._

_“Isn’t Sebi supposed to be here? He loves knife tricks.”_

_Ryou looked at him funny. “You met Sebi when I was in college, it’s way too soon for that.”_

_“Good point. Then who are we waiting for in the parking lot?”_

_“Amane. She’s supposed to be in high school now, right?” Ryou glared at him. How could he have forgotten? They_ **were** _out of middle school. Sebi just wasn’t around anymore for some reason._

_“What about_ **my** _sister?”_

_“You forgot her name. Don’t you know they don’t even get an afterlife if you do that? You forget people so easily, Tou.”_

_“I swear to god Ryou, if you use that name any time after a middle school flash back-“_

 

* * *

 

The next time Ryou came in with a glass of water, Bakura was awake, picking at piles in the blanket. “I don’t know anything about my mother. But we weren’t from- In Egypt- Ryou, what if she saw me crying? Over a boy? Wouldn’t she hate me?”

Ryou climbed onto the bed to sit with him this time. “You had a happy family. She couldn’t be the kind of person who would hate you.”

“I never really met her, though! What if my mother’s ghost thinks I have a gay demon and she hates me!”

“Your mother doesn’t hate you. She’s dead. Your whole family loves you and can see you and they’ve all figured out that homophobia is stupid. She would just want happiness for you.”

“Ryou, my mother wasn’t Shinto.”

“Fuck, fine, she died, and god reassured her it’s fine for you to like dick, because you’re a perfect creation, and then all the real homophobes went to hell.”

“What if they’re all angry because of how they died, and they never moved on?”

“You just told me they’re not Shinto.” Ryou dug the heel of his hand into his eye socket. “Shit. They’re Egyptian, ‘Kura. Set let them join an angry undead army, and if you ever really need help he’ll send them down in a horde of cats to save you.”

“Ryou, that’s really stupid.”

“I know.” The bed shifted, and Ryou lay down next to him, “But so is thinking your mother hates you just because she can’t come back to argue with you. She plays bridge with mine, and they’re both the kind of moms who tell everyone how much they love their gay sons, and they’d yell at people for us, and we would both be embarrassed by everything they post about us online.” By now Ryou was crying too.

Bakura felt responsible- for not thinking of all the small lies Ryou must have told himself about his own dead family members over the years. “I guess I wouldn’t have been her brother, but I could have taught Amane how to beat up any guys who looked at her funny.”

“I could have shown your sister how to track IP addresses if anyone ever sent her something weird.”

“I think my dad built houses. He probably could have shown your dad how the pyramids were built.”

 

* * *

 

 

The next day, Bakura went home to his own empty apartment and cleaned himself up. The day after that, he went to work on time and pretended nothing had changed. Ryou and Yugi and Mai all kept tabs on him, and he gave each of them a version of his feelings he thought would most keep them from worrying.

Like dust settling in a tomb, his life fell back into its patterns.

He took on more hours at work, and stole less inventory. His manager thought he might be able to get him a promotion, and Bakura thought it was about time he started looking for work somewhere other than a shit convenience store.

He started playing Monster World at Ryou’s place on weekends again. Mai had replaced him as rogue, so he rolled himself a charismatic assassin to fill in the gaps.

There weren’t other men. There were attempts – Ryou often set him up – but they always felt hollow. Bakura would push and they would step back. They were polite, and they were whatever he was supposed to need them to be. Each time he butted up against one and found no wall of resistance, he resented it more.

Sebastian had at least kept up with him when they argued, and Bakura often felt as though he had turned his back on the only person capable of understanding him. Mai watched him like a hawk, and he was certain that without her holding him accountable he might have tried to go back.

Eventually he gave up on Ryou’s blind dates, and loneliness became a part of his routine.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a pacing/breather chapter. Have fun!
> 
> There's a quick nondescript wank at the end.

“I don’t trust the messenger. I Sneak Attack.”

Bakura liked to sit cross legged on his chair and doodle in a sketchbook while he played Monster World. The table was too crowded for drawing, between Ryou’s dioramas and character sheets. Everyone else could tell that he was getting excited, because he had shoved the sketchbook under his ass for safekeeping and leaned up onto the table to assess the current map.

‘Everyone’ in this case included several of Ryou’s friends through Yugi: Anzu, Honda, Jonouchi, Mai. It was good Ryou could afford a larger apartment, because his guest lists for gaming weekends sometimes made it into the double digits. Bakura usually felt crowded when he went, but I found that he preferred it to being alone.

“No! I’m not getting cheated out of another quest just ‘cause ‘Kura wants to stab everyone!” Jonouchi swatted at the pair of dice in Bakura’s hand to keep him from rolling. “I’ll counter and sell him out if he does it!”

Bakura scrambled to get his dice back, “I had Invisible active! You don’t even see that I’m going to stab him!”

Jonouchi looked around the table for a friend, “Anzu, cast Sense Motive on Bakura before he stabs the messenger!”

“Jou, why would my character cast Sense Motive on Bakura?”

“Because he always kills NPCs!”

“Wait,” Yugi motioned for Jonouchi to sit back down, “We could have Anzu Sense Motive on the messenger instead of Bakura, because the last two messengers he’s killed were assassins trying to kill my summoner-prince.”

Bakura made a very smug, very in-character face, “And as his majesty’s best paid assassin, I’m responsible for killing other, worse assassins.”

Anzu rolled her eyes. “I’d like to Sense Motive on the NPC.”

Ryou was grinning, “You can’t talk it over with ‘Kura in-character. The Assassin’s first hit lands the same time you activate Sense Motive.”

Anzu and Bakura both rolled low. His hit was going to be massive, and she would basically get to read the messenger’s mind.

Bakura couldn’t help leaning in to Ryou’s reveal as hard as Jonouchi was. “He was just a messenger, and his stats were too low for him to survive the blow. As for his full motive, you search the body and find the letter he was delivering. The messenger has a peace treaty from the prince who has been hunting Mai for scorning him, one that can be cancelled immediately if the messenger, his good friend, comes to harm.”

Mai groaned. “You mean I could have gone back to my kingdom and started collecting bonuses for being real royalty?”

Bakura jumped up to grab at Ryou’s laptop to check the DM notes, “Fuck you, Ryou, you just made that up!”

“I swear I didn’t! You’ve been killing so many messengers; I thought I could trick you into it!” Ryou dodged across the room with his laptop while Honda and Jonouchi ran interference.

“I wanna kill Bakura’s character!” The headlock he was in suggested to Bakura that Jonouchi also wanted to try to kill him in real life. Bakura kneed him in the crotch and ducked under the table to escape.

“You can’t kill my character!”

Ryou laughed, “He can totally kill your character! ‘Kura’s still invisible, though.”

Mai moved her chair to let him escape from under the table, and Bakura scrambled to plop down next to Ryou, who had ended up on the couch. Ryou had minimized the page with his notes, and Bakura was left staring at the extremely lewd repeating gif that had replaced them on his screen. “Anzu, tell them I’m too good at doing damage to kill.”

Anzu laughed. “You do a lot of damage, but Jou does more, and Honda needs less healing. Honestly, we would do way better if you rolled a Bard to replace your Assassin. I’ve had my hands full with support ever since Shizuka ditched us for Otogi.”

“Mai!”

“I have Sneak Attack, and I can actually pick locks. You’re redundant, babe.”

Bakura draped himself dramatically over Ryou, “Lunch break. I’m calling a lunch break before we do anything anyone might _regret_ later on down the campaign.”

 

* * *

 

 

When he was alone in his own apartment, Bakura still felt the sting of being alone. But on weekends like this, when Ryou’s dorky friends all crowded into the apartment for long gaming sessions, Bakura felt like he could survive it.

It could be hard to see Ryou and Yugi cuddle up to each other during breaks. It was hard to listen to Anzu talk about the people she had met on music video sets now that her dancing was taking off. When Shizuka stopped by with Otogi, or Jou yelled at his Rich Boy on the phone, or Mai mentioned her fling of the week, Bakura couldn’t help but feel like he was dragging behind. But he still liked to be around all of them as often as possible, because as much as he didn’t want to admit it, they weren’t just ‘ _Ryou’s friends he hung out with sometimes’_ anymore. They were his friends now too.

“I think it’s serious this time.” Mai was still the easiest for him to talk to. They usually claimed a quiet corner to themselves while everyone else ate.

“Museum Girl?” He didn’t mean to seem callous, but it was hard to keep up with her dating life.

Mai never seemed to be offended by his bad memory. “Isis, yeah.”

“I thought you were afraid of her.” He cast a hopeful glance at her sandwich, “how about that bacon?”

“You’re _so_ taking advantage of my diet.” She picked it out and passed it over. “Okay: she’s super hot and I definitely was, but Ryou insisted she was just quiet, not uppity, and he was right. She’s kind of a dork. I probably should have expected that from somebody who’s been in school as long as she has.”

“She has family in Egypt, right?” As much as Bakura was freaked out by Ryou’s museum coworkers, he had a soft spot for anyone who worked with the Egyptian stuff. Technically he was Egyptian Stuff brought over by the museum staff, since Dr. Bakura had found him when he was nine years old and selling looted antiquities to the grad students on one of his digs.

“Well, she has two brothers, and they’re all from Egypt, but I think they’re moving to Japan as soon as they can settle some stuff on both ends.”

“That’s cool, I guess.” He didn’t really think he would have much in common with any of them. His Arabic wasn’t great after fifteen years in Japan, and he hadn’t exactly had a traditional home life for any of the growing up he remembered. “So how serious does it have to be before I get to meet the ‘super hot’ museum girl?”

“You could visit Ryou for lunch any time you wanted, you know. But she’s a Duel Monsters nerd, so she’ll probably turn up here sooner than later.” She leaned back against the wall, and they both watched Jou and Honda flipping through Ryou’s gif folder from earlier with an air of appraisal. “Not sure if that’s a good thing, or not.”

“Throw her in the deep end, if she swims, you’re set.”

“Would be nice if this deep end didn’t have so many sharks. Which-”

Bakura was already shaking his head-

“How about you, catch any decent fish lately?”

“No. Absolutely not. Did you know that Haga and Ryuzaki have a joint account for threesomes?”

Mai giggled violently. “Oh, I definitely know about that.”

He gaped, “You didn’t.”

“Oh, _I_ didn’t. I’m not opposed to a good Devil’s Threesome, but I’m not sure either one of them is interested in _that._ Buut~” the look on her face was downright evil, and Bakura didn’t trust it one bit. “They aren’t the only people we know with a joint account on a few sites, and ours like to fish out some _weird_ combinations.”

Without meaning to, his gaze was drawn to Yugi. “No, no way, my brother did not-”

“He says Ryuzaki’s bigger, but Haga’s a better lay.”

Indignant, he abandoned her to once again threaten to thrash his brother, _“Ryou! Did you forget what they were like in high school?”_

* * *

 

 

It was strange, he thought later as he lay in his own bed, alone in his apartment. He had slept alone while dating Sebastian. Before the Bakuras, he had been even more alone. Still, he felt colder and lonelier each time he returned to his empty home.

Sebastian was over, nothing more than a scar that ached when the weather was bad. Bakura had plenty of those. He no longer missed Sebastian.

The quiet was what got to him. Perhaps it was a latent nesting instinct kicking in as he entered his mid twenties, but as small as his cheap apartment was, the longer he lived alone the more he felt it was empty. With his optimism about finding a new date dwindling, he felt like a ghost, trapped alone in a small room for the rest of forever.

He usually filled the void with _jerkin’ it_.

_Right now, he didn’t feel like putting up with Demon Bullcrap. Bakura wanted to feel good on his own, for himself, without bothering to think up a reason his imaginary Demon Lord would be invested._

_Besides, he deserved it. There was nothing wrong with being tired of being alone._

_It was hard to keep his mind from wandering, though, and it really did want to know what to do with his stupid Demon Lord. Fuck, he hated that guy. Today? Bakura has summoned all the dark magic he knows, and bound his Demon to servitude, and the big idiot’s only job is sucking Bakura off._

Oddly enough, he feels better than he has in a while afterwards.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Malik!

Several weeks later, Ryou called to invite Bakura to dinner. His voice wavered on the other end of the phone, as if he was nervous that Bakura was going to turn him down. “Isis’ brothers are moving in next week. She wants to introduce them to some people in Japan right away, but she wants to keep the meeting small. She’s going to have dinner at a fancy restaurant, and for some reason she thought my brother and my boyfriend were the best people to invite, since Mai and I both trust you.”

Mai hadn’t yet introduced Isis to the group, both for fear that it would be a disaster, and because Isis was busy with the museum and settling things with her brothers. Bakura was in no rush, he wasn’t good at first impressions. The idea that they had decided _Bakura_ was one of the select friends to introduce to Isis and her brothers at the same time was laughable.

“You told her I hate fancy restaurants?” He always felt like his skin was a little too tight at upscale events. They felt unreal, like something created for fae-creatures, and he was certain that the people who _did_ belong in high society could tell he was still the scrappy street urchin. Somehow, any time he was somewhere expensive, he couldn’t go an hour without finding his own silver hairs in his food, as if he were shedding all over the venue.

“I said you might be busy, because your work hours are odd.”

“Is this a one-off thing, or is she looking for tour guides? Hanami’s coming up, does she want me to dress them up in kimonos and introduce them to the wonders of sake?”

Ryou giggled, “They can take care of themselves. I think she just wants to make sure they have a few contacts here in case there’s an emergency.”

Bakura rubbed at the bridge of his nose. He knew this was going to turn into a pain in the ass, but Mai was probably desperate. She didn’t have any family worth introducing to her girlfriend, and at some point you were usually supposed to introduce your new girlfriend to _somebody_ to prove you weren’t some sort of shut-in serial killer. “Okay, I’ll go.”

Bakura rolled his eyes as Ryou squealed into the receiver. “Oh, good! It should be fun, Isis is great, I bet you’ll get along!”

Bakura endured more excited babbling as Ryou gave him the time, and instructions to the French restaurant (seriously, they were moving to Japan, why not introduce them to ramen shops) Isis had picked.

 

* * *

 

 

Picking out clothes for a fancy restaurant was difficult. Bakura put less effort into dressing for first dates. For first dates he could go with dangerous-sexy: his only pair of leather pants, too much steel jewelry, and scarlet. Dangerous-sexy made his scars intriguing.

They didn’t compliment business-casual nearly as well.

The amount of fretting and pacing he did to pick out a charcoal gray sweater and call Ryou to borrow some khakis was embarrassing. It was a testament to how much he owed Mai that he was trying at all. He didn’t know Isis, and he didn’t give a shit about her brothers, but disappointing Mai would be a shitty way of repaying her for everything she’d done after Sebi.

Ryou’s khakis were several inches too long, and he felt like an idiot wearing them, but he wasn’t going to buy his own and he sure as hell wasn’t going to see if Yugi’s fit better.

It wasn’t worthwhile for him to walk back to his own apartment after picking the pants up, so Bakura hung around for a few hours so they could just walk to the restaurant together.

Ryou was an expert at business casual. He owned _multiple_ pairs of khakis, and real dress shirts and blazers. He had the gall to consult with Bakura on _which_ perfect outfit was perfect enough for dinner, which Bakura responded to with a middle finger.  

 

* * *

 

 

Yugi was already chatting with the Ishtars when they arrived. Isis seemed engaged, but her brothers were both doing more fiddling with their phones than contributing. Bakura had developed the same habit when it came to Yugi, and he appreciated them a little more just for that.

Isis was pretty enough. If he had to guess, ‘girl who looked like she could be a model’ was something Mai would be interested in. She wore an elegant white gown, and a lot of gold, and looked entirely out of Mai’s paygrade. He knew from his dad and Ryou that the Domino Museum did not pay particularly well, and that the graduate work needed to get there was expensive, and he wondered about what other income the Ishtars might be bringing in.

The shorter of her two brothers looked like a douchebag. His blond hair (bleached? Had to be.) was slicked back, and he was wearing a _white_ suit, designer sunglasses, and a plum colored shirt that was almost definitely _silk_. He also wore gold, more than his sister. Bakura snickered a bit at the look of him. If he was lucky, maybe the Yakuza would be hiring.

Her taller brother had more of a body guard look. He was huge, and mostly bald, and Bakura wasn’t sure he’d be finding much work outside of the Yakuza himself with the face tattoo he was sporting. Dressed in black, he faded into the background next to his siblings, and Bakura got the sense he liked it that way.

Yugi spotted them surprisingly quickly, as if he might have been a little nervous and waiting on Ryou to show up. He ran over to hug Ryou, and Bakura stepped back to make sure he didn’t get a hug as well.

“I was just introducing myself! And uh,” he pulled at Bakura’s arm and made him stand in front of the Ishtars like it was his first day of school, “this is Ryou’s brother.”

“Bakura,” he added, helpfully.

 

* * *

 

 

Yugi ended up orchestrating the seating, insisting that the groups had to be evenly spaced so that everyone got a chance to meet new people. In order, he insisted they sit: Mai, Isis, Yugi, Rishid, Ryou, Malik, Bakura. Bakura didn’t mind that he’d lucked out on the circle and gotten Mai on his left. It was the man sitting to his right who bothered him.

All of the Ishtars had accents, and Bakura noticed that Yugi and Ryou were still struggling with Rishid and Malik’s heavier accents. Bakura might not have remembered any of his Arabic, as long ago as it was, but he found that he still had a pretty good grip on what it sounded like to be switching from Arabic to Japanese.

Bakura was unsure of how he felt about being seated next to the brother named Malik. It was hard not to stare. Malik’s jewelry definitely cost more than Bakura’s apartment and bank account combined, but he wore it with a level of comfort that implied he didn’t care what happened to it. Just the thought of so much exorbitant carelessness made Bakura’s old thieving instincts flare up. 

The Ishtars insisted on paying for dinner, which to Bakura meant ‘buy the most expensive steak on the menu’, and to everyone else meant ‘it’s okay to get one drink, and try not to spend too much otherwise.’

When Malik ordered, Bakura couldn’t help but snoop. Apparently Malik was a vegetarian, but not just _any_ vegetarian. He was _one of those_ vegetarians. He asked a lot of questions, and requested a lot of very specific things, and even gave some subtle veiled threats about what would happen to the restaurant if they thought they could get lazy and use animal fats.

 

* * *

 

 

Most of the table was occupied with pleasant chatter. How did Mai and Isis meet? What kind of special exhibits are going on at the museum? What kind of interesting things happen in Domino?

Everyone but Bakura and Malik.

Malik was aloof. He ate with a practiced politeness that irritated Bakura. He was also very pretty, and that irritated Bakura even more, because Malik was dressed like a douchebag, and guys who dressed like that were not supposed to be _pretty._

Occasionally, when Bakura accidentally drifted back to looking at him, Malik would already be staring with an odd, inquisitive look on his face.

After several rounds of the two of them awkwardly dodging eye contact, he finally said something. “I hear that you’re like my sibling.”

Oh. Bakura was pretty sure he understood the funny looks, in that case. Damn, Malik didn’t know how deep he was in, if he thought it was just Bakura. “Is that a _problem?_ ”

“Well, I understand it’s unusual in Japan. And your circumstances are strange, so I understand if you are uncomfortable talking about it, but I have never seen it as something to be embarrassed about.”

“What makes my circumstances _strange_?”

“Well, it wasn’t legal, right?”

What the fuck. Bakura narrowed his eyes. This guy was getting into dangerous territory.

“Rishid was already our cousin when his parents died, so it was natural for him to become a part of our family. It’s very strange that the Bakuras took you in when you were just a child they found on the street, isn’t it?”

“Malik,” Isis snapped from across the table. 

What she hadn’t noticed was the strange release of pressure Bakura was undergoing. He didn’t care if it was rude of Malik to go digging up dirt on his adoption. Honestly, a few intrusive questions about his childhood were much better than what he’d though this was going to be about.

“Legally I didn’t exist. Dr. Bakura applied to some human interest groups to work something out. It was messy, and I was ten, so I couldn’t tell you how _legal_ it was, but I have citizenship now.”

Bakura went back to his steak, trying very hard to exhibit table manners worthy of the situation.

Malik wasn’t done probing, “I don’t know if it’s polite to ask this yet in Japan, but what is your _given_ name?”

_Dammit_. Bakura sighed, and he heard Ryou choking on his food from laughing. Bakura stared Ryou down, hard, trying to psychically will Ryou not to say anything embarrassing, “I didn’t remember my real name when I was adopted by the Bakuras, and I prefer to just use their family name.”

This got an odd look from the Ishtars, and sympathetic looks from Ryou, Yugi, and Mai. He was glad he was the darkest person at the table, because his face was heating up.

“I’d rather not explain right now.” Bakura dug very aggressively into his steak, ending the conversation.

 

* * *

 

 

While Bakura was taking a leak between dinner and dessert, Ryou took it as a chance to get him alone for a debriefing. Bakura was used to this kind of thing by now; Ryou had always been pretty casual about boundaries like ‘I am literally holding my own dick to piss right now, give me a minute’.

“Is Malik giving you trouble?”

“Nothing I can’t handle. He’s nosy.”

“It doesn’t solve the nosy issue, but Isis says he’s still working on his Japanese.” Ryou scooted up to sit on the sink counter. If anyone walked in, Bakura figured they think something weird was going on, “Apparently he’s always kind of blunt, but she says he’s worse right now because he hasn’t figured out how to speak politely yet.”

“He only _knows_ formal. What you mean is he hasn’t figured out how to be _manipulative_ in Japanese yet.”

“Maybe. I wouldn’t trust Isis to want to get into all of her brother’s worst traits.” Ryou played with the motion sensor on the faucet. “Which, speaking of: You’ve been assessing the street value of his jewelry all night.”

Bakura laughed a bit at that, as he moved to wash his hands next to Ryou. “Old habit. It’s definitely all real. I won’t swipe any of it, but it makes me curious. It doesn’t sound like either of the brothers had decent jobs they were worried about leaving. Are they into crime or something?”

Ryou bit his bottom lip. He was more accustomed to considering ‘crime family’ as a legitimate possibility. His own brother had been an antiquities dealer, after all. “Isis isn’t that open about things, criminal _or_ mundane. She’s mentioned a large inheritance; apparently they used it to support themselves after their dad died when Malik was still pretty young.”

Bakura shrugged a little awkwardly as he dried his hands off, “Maybe I’ll get nosy with Malik.”

Ryou slid back off of the counter to follow him out of the bathroom, “Not at dinner, ‘Kura. Call him this weekend if you’re that interested.”

He quickly waved the suggestion off, “The last thing I am is _that_ interested in Malik Ishtar.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is literally just a 'good things happen for Bakura and the fic starts turning around' chapter. Enjoy.

When Bakura was flipping through a manga at the front counter the next Monday, he happened to look up and catch Malik staring at him through the shop window. He was wearing sunglasses and a baggy lavender hoodie instead of a tailored suit, but they were the same sunglasses and Malik still stood out enough to be unmistakable. Caught off guard, all Bakura could do was stare back, until Malik skittered off into crowd.

He decided not to think much on it. Malik had probably needed some stuff from the convenience store, and been unlucky enough to try the one Bakura was working at. It was strange that Malik hadn’t just come in anyways, but Bakura figured that was _his_ problem. Maybe he didn’t want an acquaintance spotting him shopping like a commoner.

The next day, Bakura was straightening the magazine rack when he saw him. Malik, dressed the same, outside the shop again, staring in at him. More confused than the last time, Bakura gaped as Malik hurried off.

Wednesday, and Bakura was at the checkout counter again. He had spent most of the morning glancing up at the window, and was irritated and confused but not surprised when Malik walked up to the window and bobbed his head around, obviously looking for something. When Malik realized Bakura had been staring back at him the entire time, he jumped and hurried away. Bakura hadn’t expected Malik to be the kind of guy who could wear the same hoodie three days in a row, but apparently he was.

Thursday, Bakura flipped Malik off, hardly looking up from his manga to do it. He didn’t watch to see if Malik left. It was his last shift of the week, and he was looking forward to not seeing Malik for a few days.

“That wasn’t meant for me, was it?” A shadow had fallen over Bakura’s counter, and he realized too late that he had been behaving _outside of the employee handbook_ , so to speak.

“Of course not, sir. We have a teenager problem. I was dealing with it.” Bakura stowed his manga and looked up to see-

A human giraffe, apparently. Way too tall, and in yet another white suit. Bakura was getting tired of white suits.

“Good for you, then. Bakura Touzoku, your talents are wasted at this convenience store.”

His ears heated up just from the mention of his full name, and he let himself pick angry over embarrassed. Bakura sighed a very heavy sigh, and propped his elbow up on the counter so that he could lean his head against his fist. “Who gave you that name?”

“ _That_ ,” said the stranger, “isn’t important. I get what I want, from whoever I need to get it from. You are something I want. You are an independent artist who represents diversity in Domino City. Most major corporations in Domino have agreed to make next year _Year of Color_ , which means they’re pragmatically hiring artists to paint murals for them so that investors can feel good about themselves. Kaiba Corporation wants you as our artist-in-residence.”

Bakura rolled his eyes at that. “Kaiba Corporation? Katsuya Jonouchi gave your boss my name, and he shouldn’t have.”

A faint blush appeared at the mention of Jonouchi, and Bakura’s gut dropped through the floor.

The blush was badly paired with the glare that followed, “Are you seriously so out of touch that you don’t know who you’re talking to right now?”

Bakura took his elbow off of the table and straightened in his chair a bit. “Fucking _Kaiba_ himself, fuck me.”

“Not even in your dreams. Still, all major corporations in Domino are participating in a push to exhibit diversity in the arts. I could hire plenty of famous artists who already have a standing in Domino, but that’s easy. You’re a better choice, because you’re an unknown, and it will look best if Kaiba Corporation chooses to give this opportunity to a struggling young artist, rather than to somebody who has already made it. You’re a black gay orphan and I want you at Kaiba Corporation.”

Bakura laughed. “You’re making it sound so appealing.”

“This is strictly business. I saw a few paintings you did in high school on your school’s website, and they are adequate enough to make art critics think I’ve hired someone with a message. I don’t care what you do as long as it leaves my company looking good. I’ll triple your hourly wage at this dump. I’m offering an additional hundred thousand yen for finished murals.”

“M-hm. Just a moment.” Bakura left him at the register to check his manager’s office. He didn’t really know what the guy did back there most of the time. Payroll? He wasn’t keen on getting moved up the ladder enough to find out.

Bakura leaned against the doorframe, grinning. “Just got a job offer. If you promote me to management, can you match triple my salary and a hundred k bonus?”

“We fired Ryuji for getting high on shift. Do we need to get you tested now too?”

“Kaiba Seto’s standing at the front register; do you want to ask him?”

 

* * *

 

 

Bakura didn’t even finish his last shift. His manager had told him his standoffish behavior was unwanted, and a two week notice was unnecessary. It was the first time Bakura had ever been fired and come out feeling like the _winner_ in the situation.

He had no clue how murals got painted, but he figured Kaiba Corporation didn’t know either, and he was a pretty good liar.

Ryou was just as excited as he was about the news, and they discussed it over the phone Bakura’s entire walk home. Neither of them could really believe Jonouchi, of all people, had given Bakura a decent job recommendation. To show his enthusiasm about the sudden change in career, Ryou kept giving advice on how Bakura could avoid fucking it up, and Bakura kept assuring him it would be fine. Bakura told him everything would be fine, and he’d visit over the weekend to talk it over better, and let Ryou go once he reached his apartment.

With the adrenaline still pumping in his system, Bakura wasn’t ready for the quiet darkness of his apartment. He threw the curtains open to let in as much daylight as possible.

He was used to turning his stereo on, american rap louder than his neighbors probably appreciated, the moment he came through the door.

The songs went fast, and he didn’t know much English, but he liked the sound and he liked the music videos. It was good enough to bob along to the music without trying to keep up with what they were saying.

He grabbed a beer, and called Mai, and tried not to feel lonely in his empty apartment.

Mai was excited, and was excited to talk about it more at Ryou’s place over the weekend, and then the conversation was over, and Bakura still felt lonely in his empty apartment.

The first beer was gone, and he found another before settling down on his couch. His gaze was drawn to the cracks in his ceiling, following along nonsense patterns like rivers on a map. It wasn’t like he wanted hordes of friends available the moment he got off of work. Times like these, though, he wished there was more to say before the conversation died. Ryou and Mai had their own lives to get back to, and he never felt comfortable talking to the rest of them one on one. There were a lot of moments like this one where the best he could do was stare at the ceiling and wait for the loneliness to pass.

It didn’t pass, and he found himself finishing his second beer and getting a third. He hated drinking on that couch, but he did it anyways. Drinking on that couch reminded him of a time when he could at least get a few soft touches on a good night. It reminded him of the smell of anise, which reminded him of waking up cold and alone and hungover.

For no reason in particular, his thoughts drifted from Sebi to the other blond irritant in his life. Malik was sharper, taller, darker: there were plenty of differences, but at that moment Bakura couldn’t help but think they looked similar.

Very suddenly Bakura was struck with the question of what Malik Ishtar would be like on his couch. Entitled, pushy, demanding-

_His hair would have the burned-out straw texture of a bad bleach session. It would be in Bakura’s face, because for once Bakura would be the one pushed back into the cushions. Bakura’s hands would be pinned back behind his head, because Malik would find anything Bakura did with them to be annoying and crude. The heat of an exhale on his face, Malik’s breath smells like cinnamon-_

Nope. No. Nope. Bakura caught himself getting excited, and pulled himself off of the track his daydream was headed down. He shook himself hard to get it out of his head, and headed to the kitchen to dump the rest of his beer. There was no way he was desperate enough to start having fantasies about Isis’ (probably _straight_ ) weird brother. Nothing about that guy was normal, and there were more important questions to ask than ‘Is Malik any good in bed?’

For example: Why had Malik been stopping by his window to stare every morning? After a week of doing the same exact thing, it was hard to believe he was trying to go shopping. There had been plenty of time after Bakura’s shifts for him to sneak in, and there were plenty of other shops in the area he could have gone to instead.

Now that he had been fired, Bakura wouldn’t have a chance to see if it continued. There would be no opportunity to keep track, to try to establish a schedule for it, or to see if it ever changed. Something about the idea of losing the entire mystery so quickly disappointed him.

Malik didn’t know his work schedule. Ryou didn’t even know Bakura’s schedule from week to week. There was absolutely no way for Malik to have asked anyone about it. As far as Bakura had been able to pin it down, he passed by in the mornings. Tomorrow was Friday, and there was no reason for him to assume Bakura wouldn’t be working again.

He could wake up early, camp out in front of the convenience store, and confront Malik about it.

Bakura felt a surge of _something_ deep in his gut, and didn’t want to think about it. He was excited about catching Malik, because it was a fun distraction, and that was all there was to it.

If later, before he fell asleep for the night, Malik’s face happened to come up while he was jerking out a quickie, it was only because Malik’s weird behavior had been on his mind a lot lately.

Bakura _wasn’t_ attracted to tacky Yakuza rejects.

 

* * *

 

 

Looking good wasn’t a main concern in trying to get back at Malik, but the next morning Bakura once again found himself fretting over wardrobe. As tacky as his preferences were, it was clear that Malik cared about fashion. Picking the right outfit would irritate Malik even more, and that would make the whole game more fun to play.

The leather pants were a step too far; they still belonged to date night. Bakura had plenty of skinny jeans that showed off his ass, though, and a bright red biker jacket that didn’t get in the way of anything. After a few adjustments, it was easy enough to throw something together that looked completely accidental.

Bakura planted himself against the front of the store next to his old workplace and played Duel Monsters on his mobile to pass time. He was a little worried that one of his coworkers might see him and tell him off. He knew they wouldn’t be able to see him unless they went outside, and that he wasn’t doing anything illegal, but if one of them complained it could get in the way of his plan.

Half an hour after he got there, at almost eleven, he spotted Malik hurrying down the street. Malik kept checking his phone, and didn’t notice Bakura as he approached. Bakura kept quiet until Malik had his face pressed up against the glass of the convenience store.

“Looking for someone, gorgeous?” _Gorgeous?_ It sounded weird on the way out, he probably should have picked a different word.

Malik startled, turned to face Bakura, and backed up a few paces before managing to give him a scowl. “What are you doing out here?”

Bakura gave him a coy smile and shoved his hands in his pockets. “Got fired. My manager was tired of seeing your ass stop by every morning. More important question: what are _you_ doing out here?”

 “Maybe I needed toilet paper.”

“You’ve had a week to buy toilet paper.”

Malik rolled his eyes, and started to walk again. Bakura fell into step behind him. “Leave me alone, I’m on my way to work.”

“I don’t have a job anymore, I could follow you around all day. Why have you been staring at me on your way to work.”

Grunting in response, Malik walked faster and tried to weave into oncoming foot traffic to throw Bakura off. Unfortunately for him, Bakura was just as good at being rude and had no problem with almost colliding with other pedestrians to keep up.

“What kind of job is it?”

“None of your business!”

Bakura laughed, “Aw, but you knew I was a clerk, and where I worked. I should get to know what you do, too.”

There was a visible tension in Malik’s shoulders. Bakura knew there was a chance he could get punched at this point, but he was having too much fun to back off. Malik ignored him and increased his pace only to stop abruptly when it was clear that Bakura would be keeping up with him no matter what.

“I fix bikes!”

Bakura nearly ran into him, and it took a moment to process what he’d said. “What, like a mechanic?”

It was amazing how good Malik was at making it obvious he was rolling his eyes under those pricey sunglasses. “I guess like a mechanic. I rented a space in a garage, and I advertised to other mechanic shops that I know a lot about bikes. People send me extra work, and I fix expensive bikes, _alone,_ because I like _quiet_.”

‘Mechanic’ wouldn’t have been in the top ten of Bakura’s guesses for what Malik did in his free time. He bit his lip and waited for him to finish talking. “That doesn’t sound like a real job.” The foot traffic around them was heavy, and they were getting jostled around. Malik allowed Bakura to pull him over to lean against a wall and out of the way.

“I don’t _need_ a real job. It’s work. I like it. I told you about it, and now you can leave me alone.”

“Hmmm,” Bakura mimed as though he was thinking it over, “But you got to see me working. What if I want to watch you fix a bike?”

“ _Gods_ you’re frustrating. No, I already told you, I want to be _alone_.”

“Just finishing what you started.”

“I-” Malik started pulling at his own hair, “This has nothing to do with you. Your store is just on the way to my garage.”

“And? It isn’t a zoo.”

“And your brother Ryou mentioned _how you are,_ and it was very difficult to talk about _that sort of thing_ before, and I have considered approaching you about it, because you seemed interesting, but you’re annoying.”

It took a moment to parse what he was talking about.

Malik looked mortified, under the layer of anger he’d already had. 

“Fucking shit, you wanted to ask me out?”


	7. Chapter 7

Both were subdued for the rest of the walk to Malik’s garage. His workspace was small, since he only needed to rent enough space to work on bikes. It was a well-lit space, much cleaner than Bakura had expected: everything neatly arranged and meticulously wiped down.

Bakura sat on the large plastic crate Malik pointed out, and waited for Malik to say something.

Malik dumped his hoodie and sunglasses on a table, and for the first time Bakura could see just how muscular he was. All he had on underneath was a black tank top, and it showed off his biceps in the best sort of way. Sebi had gone to the gym pretty regularly, but Malik was _built_. ‘Mechanic’ was actually starting to sound like a sensible hobby.

He was ignored as Malik looked over a clipboard and started doing – well, whatever - to the bike he was working on that day.

The quiet was sitting heavy on Bakura. They were in something of an awkward situation.  Unresolved, the tension crawled under his skin like so many ants, and he was desperate to break the silence.

“My ex had a moped. He said it wasn’t gay to own a moped. Called it a chick magnet.”

Malik popped his head up to look at Bakura over the bike, “He wasn’t gay?”

By now Bakura was used to shrugging in response to questions about Sebi. “Gay, bi, whatever it was he didn’t seem to want to be it, and I wasn’t a special enough case for him to slow down and talk about it. Just kept talking about women and ditching me whenever I wasn’t being useful.”

“Hm.” Malik disappeared behind the bike again. “Well, I have a Ducati that barely sees the light of day, and I used to drive a cheap Enfield that wasn’t worth bringing to Japan. I’m still shopping for a replacement.”

“I don’t really know anything about bikes. Ducatis are expensive, right?”

“Don’t have to be. Mine was.”

Bakura kicked his feet against the side of the crate and listened to the sounds of Malik at work. After a while, the quiet started to eat at him again. “So how do you pay for it? Everything, you know. If you don’t work real jobs.”

“None of your business.”

“Right.”

“You uh. I thought you had brown eyes, but they’re blue, aren’t they?” Shit, that was some crap small talk.

“Purple on my passport, actually. They _should_ be blue, but the blood vessels show through too much. A coloration defect runs in my family. It’s why my hair is so light.”

“That’s _natural_?”

He heard a hint of a laugh in Malik’s voice, “Yes. I suppose you paid a lot to have _silver_ hair like an old man?”

“Nah, mine’s natural too. Never recovered from a nutritional issue.”

“Oh. Interesting. It’s very popular now, at least.” Malik came around and started working on something on the other side of the bike. Bakura tried not to stare at his ass. His attention traveled upwards, and he noticed that where Malik’s shoulders showed under the tank there were a few strange, perpendicular lines of scar tissue sticking out on either end. He wondered whether they were surgical, but figured it would be too invasive to ask.

“Everything that grew in later is black, though.” He snorted. That was probably a little too much, but Malik hadn’t reacted. “So. Back in Egypt, did you ever get a chance to,” Bakura’s voice dropped, and he made a lewd gesture even though Malik wasn’t looking, “you know-”

“Not a virgin, none of your business.”

“Just curious.” Yeah, asking about surgical scars would definitely be too invasive. Bakura stared into the fluorescent lights and let Malik do his job.

After another ten minutes, Malik sighed and said, “I invented a game to get through all the explanations I need to give to people. You’re persistent, and for some reason I still don’t hate you. Do you have any wine at your apartment?”

“I have beer and vodka.”

“Which one tastes better?”

“I can buy wine on the way home.”

“Stay. I’ll get you a bento for lunch. We can shop together.”

 

* * *

 

 

Malik was fascinated by the liquor store. He kept finding brightly colored bottles and bringing them over to Bakura for a translation, and an assessment of whether they were worthwhile. He claimed he could have easily afforded to be a heavy drinker back in Egypt, but that it was a pain to do and most of the time he would have been drinking alone. He knew wine, because he liked expensive foreign dinners, and he had to look like he knew what he was doing at all times.

Bakura was actually enjoying himself, despite the fact that Malik kept bringing him wines just to scoff at the description seconds later and run off to put them back. There was something endearing about the enthusiasm Malik had for what should have been a quick stop, and Bakura was having fun being a part of it.

After reassuring Bakura that he would pay for it himself, Malik collected an enviable assortment of drinks at the front counter. He had already picked out a _Cabernet Sauvignon_ he wanted to use for their game, and then gone off the rails on other things he wanted to try at some point. Bakura was able to convince him not to buy any curacao or pre-mixed margarita, but he couldn’t steer Malik away from things that were apparently considered extremely fancy.

Not wanting to waste the trip, Bakura bought cheap beer and a bottle of sake, the former for when this whole date inevitably became a disaster and the latter in case Malik wanted to try something Japanese before the date inevitably became a disaster.

It felt just like Bakura remembered going to high school parties had as they walked home with crates full of Malik’s liquor, the sun starting to sink low into the steely winter sky. Back in the days when he had known he didn’t really like anyone, but could pin Jonouchi in a wrestling match and maybe even make out with someone if Otogi brought enough of the right people along.

“So I guess you didn’t drink much in high school, huh? Did you party?”

“I was… busy.” Malik sniffed and turned his head to look at anything but Bakura.

“Well, my brother’s friends were really. Uh. Social. Ryou’s not good at getting out, so it was probably good for him, but I couldn’t stand most of them. I usually went along when they took him to parties, because I was the _killjoy_ who knew how to tell other people _no_ when he didn’t want to do something. They always acted like I was _controlling_ , but I was taking care of him, you know?”

He elbowed Malik, and that drew a laugh out of him. “No, not really. I was the _problem child_. Rishid and Isis spent a lot of time chasing me around.”

“I can tell you’ve settled down. Expensive bikes, bad boys who wear leather jackets.”

“Oh, you think you’re _bad,_ Bakura?” Malik caught Bakura’s eye under the edge of his sunglasses, and Bakura liked the glint he saw in the expression.

“You don’t even know how _bad_ bad can be, Ishtar.”

“Oh, sure. Regale me with tales of your former juvenile _badness_ , Bakura.”

As he started to talk about high school parties, Malik snorted in derision, and Bakura found that he appreciated it. They were shitty parties with cheap beer and too many girls trying to convince Ryou to ‘switch teams’, and Bakura usually felt like he was expected to defend them. Malik made snide comments that suggested he saw Bakura as above them, somehow, and it was one hell of a compliment.

Bakura hadn’t considered the reality of the fact that he was taking Malik back to his apartment and the sudden jump in intimacy that implied until the complex was in sight.

It was just going to be a stupid drinking game to break the ice better. They were starting to get along, but neither of them had really said that this was really a _date_. If he started thinking Malik was going to expect anything, if Bakura himself started to expect anything, it was just overthinking.

The climb to his apartment was four flights, and Bakura wondered whether Malik stared at his ass the whole way up.

Malik looked good leaning against the wall in front of his apartment door, and Bakura nearly dropped his keys as he started to unlock it. Hoo boy. Malik was probably renting some kind of penthouse. Malik’s landlord probably didn’t leave weird passive aggressive notes about how much he was contributing to the roach problem on his door. Bakura felt a strong urge to start apologizing ahead of time as they entered, “I haven’t, uh, I haven’t had visitors in a while. Ryou has the good apartment, I just live here. So it’s kind of messy. And cramped. And sometimes there’s electrical issues. And uh, the shower is almost always cold. Not that you’d need to take a shower.”

Malik moved some magazines out of the way and sat down on Bakura’s couch, “It’s fine. Really. It’s, uh,” he leaned back, taking the whole place in, “Punk Rock. Cold showers are invigorating.”

Bakura hid his face in his hands as he sat down, “I really didn’t mean the thing about the shower.”

“Tch, well, I have a bath with jets, if you ever get tired of _cold showers_.” Delicately, Malik set his sunglasses on the coffee table, and kicked a foot up next to them. He had turned to face Bakura, but Bakura had already jumped off the couch and was hurrying to the kitchen. The inflection on _cold showers_ had been just suggestive enough to scare him right out of the room.

“I have juice glasses. They’re probably the right size. I don’t know, I never drink wine.”

“Should be fine!”

After digging out the juice glasses, washing the dust off of them, and opening Malik’s wine bottle (thank god for Mai leaving shit at his apartment all the time, he never would have had a corkscrew) Bakura sat down again and poured.

“So how does your game work?”

“Bakura.”

Startled by the sudden intensity, Bakura answered, “Yeah?”

“Do you swear to take this seriously, and to tell no lies, and do you swear that nothing you hear shall leave this room?”

It was one hell of a jump in formality. “Y-yes. I uh. I swear I’ll tell the truth and not tell anyone.”

Malik seemed satisfied, but Bakura was still freaked out. He didn’t know Malik that well, and he didn’t want to wind up being asked to form some sort of dark pact with him this soon after meeting.

“Do you have paper?”

Bakura groaned and left to get paper and pens. The apologetic smile on Malik’s face _almost_ made up for it.

“Okay.” He took one of the sheets and a pen. “We’ll both write down just one word to describe the biggest story we have to get out of the way. Then, we both finish our drinks. When you finish your drink, you get to see the word and guess what it’s about. Then we refill the glasses, and if you finish a second glass, the other person has to tell the story.”

“So we’ll both be a little drunk by the time we have to talk about it.”

“Yeah, but you have to be drunk to listen, too. I don’t have to say anything unless you’re keeping up on your end.”

“Fine. Your idea, and if you lie to me I’ll just tell _big sis_.” Bakura scribbled on his paper and downed his first glass while Malik was still starting on his word.

Bakura pretended like he was trying to peek, and Malik pushed him away. “Aw, are you writing it in Kanji just for me?”

“This game wouldn’t work very well if I wrote it in Arabic.” Malik drained his wine just as quickly in order to keep up, and flipped his paper for Bakura to see. It took him a second to pick out the word with the uneasy handwriting, ‘ _scars’._

Before he made his guess, Bakura flipped his paper around to show off ‘ _orphan_ ’. Malik squinted, still slow on reading. Bakura rolled his eyes and translated, “It says orphan.”

Malik huffed. “I was getting there. I already knew you were an orphan. You already talked about that. Doctor Bakura adopted you through some shady charity work. ”

“You don’t know all of it, though. I noticed you had surgical scars on your shoulders earlier, is that what yours is about?”

He noticed Malik tense up, and wondered if he had said it too casually. Instead of acknowledging it one way or the other, Malik poured the second round. He was the one to cheat this time, starting before Bakura had a chance to grab his glass.

“Okay. Orphan.” He slammed his glass to the table hard enough that it made Bakura flinch, but nothing broke. Bakura finished seconds later, and set his own down.

“Fine,” it was frustrating that he would have to go first. If it weren’t for the warm numbing sensation kicking in from the wine, he might have chickened out. The game was about vulnerability, and he didn’t like the idea that he was going to have to be vulnerable before Malik said a single thing. Before he started, Bakura poured himself a third glass. 

“I don’t know where I was born, because it doesn’t exist anymore, and it wasn’t important when it did. I barely remember anything about it at all. I was probably three or four when it got wiped out. I only remember guns, and my mother telling me to hide while she tried to take care of my sister.

“They died. I don’t remember seeing it, but I know it happened. I lucked out, because the whole town apparently had criminal connections, and my _‘uncle’_ swung by to check the damage and found me. He didn’t know my family, and he didn’t know me, but he gave a shit about the people in my town, and he took me in. It wasn’t charity- he wasn’t a _dad_ like Doctor Bakura. He needed a small kid to drop through holes to try to snatch up pottery and shit. I didn’t even live with him most of the time. He’d give me food, and pay me for anything I brought him as long as it was worthwhile.

“I was ‘ _skinny brat’_ most of the time. I must have told him my name when he took me in, but apparently you go through enough shit without hearing it, you lose that kind of thing. I didn’t really like him that much, and he didn’t really like me that much, and I found out I could sell tomb shit to archaeologist grad students for double the price _‘uncle’_ paid for them.

“Eccentric Doctor Bakura comes along, and he thinks I’m great. I loved shit-talking the foreigners. He looks sad every time he talks to me, but he thinks I’m hilarious. He probably would have just let me wither away like that, but then his wife and daughter die and he freaks the fuck out. He can’t just watch this little Egyptian shitbag he met waste away selling pottery, or grow up and get into gangs or whatever. He has to take care of this kid. He has to save a life. So he’s like, ‘ _yo skinny brat, you wanna be my kid’_ and I mean I’d already had half my face torn up over a bit of sleeping shelter, so I wasn’t going to turn an offer like that down, and it turns out I’m suddenly Japanese.”

Malik looked skeptical. “Are you making up something ridiculous to make fun of me?”

“Text Ryou. He’ll back me up. Best part is, I still have the stupid name I picked when I was ten years old, because Doctor Bakura didn’t have the sense to tell me I needed something more normal. I wanted to be _Bakura Touzoku_ , because I was already a thief and thought it sounded badass in Japanese.”

“Fine. I will ask him later, you know. But I’ll take it for now. Mine’s actually worse, but at least I have proof.”

Malik fiddled with the bottom of his hoodie for a moment before pulling it off. With the alcohol starting to really hit his system, Bakura realized he was also starting to get overheated, and pulled his own jacket off.

“Hm. So in Japan, you have the Yakuza.”

Bakura bit his lip. It wouldn’t be in his best interest to start bragging that he had totally called Malik for involvement in organized crime.

“They have ancient roots. My family, the Ishtar family, were a head family of something similar, but much older. We are _supposedly_ part of a line dating back to the tombkeepers paid by the pharaohs to ensure their bodies were well cared for in death to ensure a pleasant afterlife. Mostly they did a lot of smuggling and gambling, but they also maintained the tombkeeping tradition by going after people who dealt in antiquities. Because I was my father’s eldest son, I was meant to lead the family, and part of my initiation into that role was having the symbolism of our organization carved into my back.”

He sighed, turning away from Bakura. After taking several seconds to work himself up to it, Malik pulled his tank top off so that Bakura could see the whole thing.

It was a horrible mess of scar tissue running up and down most of his back forming intricate but imperfect images and hieroglyphs. The scars were unnatural in a way that tattoos or normal scar tissue wasn’t, and Bakura felt a little sick looking at them. He vaguely wanted to touch, but he didn’t feel like he had earned that kind of intimacy yet.

“My father did it himself. I was awake the whole time, and he didn’t numb it. It was the worst thing that has ever happened to me. Rishid got his face done later, because he felt bad about not being able to take the role away from me.”

“How did you get out?”

“Hm?” Malik turned back to face him as he pulled his top back on, a distant look in his eyes.

“You said you were _supposed_ to lead them, not that you _do_ lead them. What happened?”

“Ah. My father got himself killed by a rival when I was fifteen, and most of them wanted me to step up, take charge, and get revenge. I hated everything about all of it, though, so I made a deal with the local police and utterly decimated every aspect of the syndicate I could reach. I’ll be honest: they were the kind of people who would have thought it was sensible to wipe an entire unmarked village off of the map for profiting off of stolen grave goods if they thought they could get away with it.”

“I figure Isis would confirm all of this, if I asked her?”

“She hates talking about it, but she would, yes.” He looked downright miserable. Bakura had to wonder how many people Malik had actually played his game with. Earlier he had made it sound like he played it pretty often, but he seemed unused to sharing his story with others. 

“I believe you, though.” Bakura poured another glass of wine for Malik, and gently wrapped his hands around it.

Malik was distracted by the gesture, “What?”

“I believe you. Because I told the truth with mine, and your back wasn’t just a quick trip to the tattoo parlor. We both had fucked up childhoods in Egypt. Fuck Egypt. Japan has karaoke bars, booze, and a serious animated pornography problem.”

Mid-sip when Bakura mentioned the pornography, Malik choked and sputtered, “Animated _what_?”

Bakura leaned in, licking his lips, “People like my brother and his boyfriend go apeshit for badly drawn animated pornography. Ryou and Yugi don’t even own all that much compared to some people. Americans buy tons of it too, it’s like a cultural export.”

Malik set his glass on the coffee table and looped an arm back behind Bakura’s neck. Shifting his legs, he pulled himself over so that their foreheads were touching. “Do _you_ watch a lot of this _animated pornography_ , Bakura Touzoku?”

Bakura laughed, suddenly a little breathless. In the quietest, sexiest voice he could muster, he said, “I have an imaginary, ten foot tall demon boyfriend named Zorc with a dragon penis.”

“Shit,” Malik started laughing even harder than Bakura was, burying his face in Bakura’s shoulder. “Can’t compete with that.”

“He’s a prick, I’ll just dump him.” Bakura realized Malik’s hair was soft, and smelled like pomegranate shampoo, and that he liked having it pushed up against his face.

“You better dump him.” Malik slid further up onto the couch, carefully pushing down on Bakura to urge him to lie back against the cushions. He hovered for a moment, brows scrunched up in concern, “This is okay, right?  I admit I was interested in talking to you because you were _like this_ , but I don’t want to assume today meant anything-”

Bakura reached a hand up to play with the hair hanging around Malik’s face. “I’m not all that drunk. I didn’t expect to like you. This might be stupid and impulsive, but I _do_ like you. Is that alright?”

Malik nodded, so Bakura pulled him down so they could finally kiss.

It wasn’t perfect. Bakura’s left leg got trapped against the back of the couch, and he had a keen sense of Malik’s knee digging into it. He couldn’t move his head well enough to accommodate how much Malik was moving against him, so their teeth collided and sloppy misplaced trails of spit were starting to accumulate all over his face. His pants were too tight, and he wished they were gone.

None of it mattered, though, because this was happening, and it was real.

Malik was solid and warm pressed against him. Whenever he managed to navigate back to the right place, Malik’s tongue would slide against Bakura’s and he felt near enough to ecstasy.

His hands were more than tolerated. Malik kept grabbing at Bakura’s wrists to get him to move them over his body, humming and whining whenever Bakura managed to do something right with them. Bakura wasn’t brave enough to touch most of his back yet, but he was thorough with everything else within reach. He kept returning to Malik’s ass, because every time he brushed over it Malik would moan and grind down against him.

Malik pushed himself up, panting. Bakura turned his head to catch his breath against the back of the sofa, eyes still shut tight.

“Do you want to take this slow?”

Bakura whined against the couch cushion. His entire body felt flushed, and he was enjoying it. “I don’t know. I’m wearing my worst pair of boxers.”

He felt Malik laughing in heavy breaths against his ear, “I’m sure your boxers would look sexy enough on the floor.”

“Fuck, Malik.” The tears were coming, he could feel it. He was in freefall, and it should have been pleasant, but it wasn’t. It was too fast, too _simple_ , too out of control. It was all going to start falling apart if Bakura let it go much faster. “I can’t yet. I- I’m not sure why. I can’t.”

“Shh, sh-sh-sh-shh.” Malik settled against him on the couch, playing with his hair. “I can wait.”

“Don’t leave.”

He didn’t. Bakura let him keep a table lamp on when he asked, and Malik stayed the whole night. When he left in the morning, he promised it was only because he had a bathtub (big enough for two) with jets.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I fell way behind on updating this thing, huh? I kind of hit a natural break point and let myself get behind while doing other life-related junk. 
> 
> Consider this the start of 'Part Two', and hopefully now that my life is a little sorted out, it'll start updating regularly again!

“What are you drawing?”

Bakura sat scribbling awkwardly in a sketchbook at Ryou’s kitchen table while Ryou cooked a late breakfast.

He felt out of place, as though he wasn’t really connected to his own body. Bakura didn’t know how to feel about what had happened with Malik the day before. The longer Bakura spent nursing his hangover, the more conflicted he started to feel about spending a night doing nothing more than cuddling with a near stranger. The rice and eggs in his first attempt at breakfast had congealed into a cold unappetizing block while he’d stared at them and thought about it, and eventually Bakura had given up and phoned Ryou to see if he could come over early.

“Some sort of stupid park scene with _diversity_. For the Kaiba job.” Bakura bit his tongue and aggressively erased the weird, awkward looking children he’d tried to draw. They looked like they belonged in  Ryou’s Junji Ito collection more than an imaginary diversity park.

 “I thought Kaiba Corporation were about sharp white geometry, not hippie murals.”

“It isn’t supposed to look like their other stuff. That’s why they bothered hiring someone like me in the first place. It’s diversity and enrichment shit.”

“Well, what you have there is definitely shit.”

Bakura growled and slammed the sketchbook shut. All week he had wanted to mention to Ryou that Isis Ishtar’s brother had been stalking him at work, and now the whole story had changed.

Leaning back in his chair, Bakura cracked his knuckles one at a time, and said very casually, “I took Malik Ishtar home last night.”

Ryou had gone back to cooking, and was distracted, “Did he get himself in trouble? He’s kind of an asshole, isn’t he? Why would he call you instead of a cab? You don’t even know his address, do you?”

“No, no,” Bakura tried to keep his voice casual even though he could feel himself blush, “I ran into him yesterday, and we talked for a while, and then he _went home with me_.”

He kept the statement vague and suggestive. Bakura wished it were true, because a quick and painless fuck would have been a lot easier to recover from than what had actually happened.  

Ryou dropped a plate in front of Bakura. Just the thought of more food made his stomach turn.

 “Just like that?” Ryou slid into his own seat, but stared at Bakura instead of eating.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You haven’t gone on a date in months because you say everyone you’ve met is awful, but Malik Ishtar, a guy you were about to punch out in a restaurant a week ago, is worth taking home?”

Honest was the last thing Bakura wanted to be about this situation. _It turns out Malik has a lot more going on than expensive sunglasses._ “I go out. I meet people. We ran into each other. I was drunker than usual, so he seemed better than usual.”

Ryou watched his face for a moment longer, and Bakura had a feeling of being under a microscope. He gave up and turned to his breakfast with a noncommittal shrug. “Fair enough. You should try doing something more personal.”

“Hmm?” Bakura picked at his own rice, trying to convince himself it would be worth eating.

“Instead of cheesy diversity stuff you don’t care about. Make the mural about you. That’s why they hired you, right? I know it’s a pragmatic decision on their part, but they still decided to hire a gay foreigner and you probably have more to offer than an ugly painting of a bunch of kids standing around together.”

“My personal life isn’t very marketable. Is Kaiba Corporation interested in kids hiding from fire and guns, with a few dicks floating in the background?”

Ryou rolled his eyes. “Don’t be so literal. When Kaiba does Duel Monsters tournaments his favorite card is a dick dragon, though, so maybe he would be.”

“You ever try to pick him up with that one? ‘Hey, you ever wanted to see a dick so pale it looks like BEWD’?”

Ryou pretended to gag while Bakura laughed. He didn’t even notice when he started eating, finally distracted from everything making his stomach upset.

 

* * *

 

 

Yugi and Mai were the only people able to make it to gaming night, so they decided to skip out on more complicated games and just play slapjack and drink. They had been going for over two hours, long enough for Yugi to get drunk and give up his winning streak in favor of flirting with Ryou.

Flushed a deep scarlet, Ryou made token protests to the attention. He was nothing if not a considerate host. It was clear he was fishing in the back of his head for a topic of conversation to distract the other two with so he could dodge out to the kitchen with Yugi. “Hey Mai, ’Kura says he slept with Isis’ brother.”

Bakura ground his face into the table as Yugi giggled, escaping with Ryou while Mai stared him down.

“Ryou needs a taller, less slutty boyfriend. I always swear I’ll never get drunk with him ever again.”

Mai yanked at Bakura’s hair to get him to look back up at her. She didn’t buy his distraction. “Malik? _Really?_ ”

Bakura groaned. “Well, it wasn’t Rishid.”

“Forgive my skepticism, but I know him better than your brother does. Malik only likes pretty, stupid boys he can manipulate who think his name is Namu. You aren’t his type by a longshot. What happened.”

She wasn’t asking, she was demanding an answer, and Bakura felt caught. “Okay, I lied. We didn’t have sex.”

She let his hair go, leaning back in her seat, “But?”

Bakura propped an elbow up on the table and leaned his head against his balled fist, “I’m not sure what happened. He was creeping around the convenience store, so I called him out, but we ended up talking, and then we started drinking, and-” he shook his head.

Mai tapped a foot on the ground and waited the silence out. A few odd thuds came from the kitchen, worse than the stretch of quiet could ever be.

“It was weird. We made out on the couch, and then slept there.” His face was heating from embarrassment and maybe something else he didn’t want to acknowledge.

“He hasn’t done anything to hurt you yet?”

He shook his head no.

“Okay. I can’t tell you not to see him, if that’s what’s happening now. I’m gonna trust you to make your own decisions and to come to me if it gets _actual_ weird. Isis worries about her brother, and I don’t like the thought of you being part of anything dangerous, but it sounds like all you’ve done is go on a _normal date._ You deserve to know that he’s a liar, and that I don’t trust him with someone I care about, but it’s your choice beyond that.”

He laughed, feeling more nauseous than the alcohol could account for. “So, are you saying he might not have really inherited an entire mafia?”

“That one’s true. He burned it himself.”

“Well, fuck.” If the biggest story he had told the whole night was true, that meant Malik wasn’t playing whatever game Mai seemed to think he usually played. None of this new information was helping to solve any of the disorientation Bakura felt while trying to navigate the Malik situation, and all he really wanted to do was go home and lay down for a while. “I need a-”

A what, exactly?

“I need to go walk. Ryou and Yugi won’t be too disappointed, I’m sure.”

 

* * *

 

 

The warmth of spring hadn’t yet reached the nighttime darkness of Domino. Bakura’s breath rose ahead of him as he walked, hands pushed deep into his pockets and jacket pulled close against the cold. It had rained earlier and the city was slick and shining, nearly blinding where the light hit.

Bakura wasn’t sure where he was walking to. Ryou lived in a nicer neighborhood than he did, and if he kept in the direction he was headed, Bakura would be in the entertainment district in no time. It would still be busy this early in the night, alive with crowds and neon he could get lost in for a while. _Lost_ was exactly where he needed to be, because he couldn’t go back to Ryou’s and he couldn’t go home. There was nothing for him back in his own apartment - it would be cold and a little damp with nobody at home to keep the furnace running.

He walked.

He walked past young professionals still in their business attire getting drinks together to celebrate a Saturday night after a week that had gone too long.

Past teens out breaking their high school curfew, girls wearing their boyfriend’s jackets because it was a constant of the universe for them to do so.

Past couples giggled in the midst of their nights out, and others arguing in quiet corners over whatever had gone wrong during theirs.

 “Hey! Are you all by yourself on a Saturday night?!” Bakura was startled from his thoughts by a woman in a ridiculous fur-lined coat and heels waving at him from the entryway to a bar. He took a step back on instinct as she proceeded to pull another woman out onto the street with her and gesture for a few more to follow.

He thumbed his knife where it sat in his pocket; mostly sure a gaggle of overdressed drunk women _weren’t_ trying to start a fight with him. “Guess so?”

“Our friend Aiko’s getting married! You wanna join the party?” The lead woman waved a shorter, less flamboyantly dressed woman to the front of the group and gestured enthusiastically at her. Aiko was already bright red from drinking, but Bakura could tell there was some embarrassment behind the color too. “We’ll buy you a few drinks because you’re pretty… Oh- and single, right? Wouldn’t want to get you in trouble!”

_Pretty_? Bakura laughed at the offer, “I might be single, but I don’t think I’m the right guy for this invitation, girls.”

Aiko’s loud friend was groaning even as a few of them laughed along with Bakura and tried to drag her away, not wanting to let her embarrass herself. “Oh, but you’re perfect! Someone tell him he’s gorgeous! I’m not _that_ drunk yet.”

A third friend, tugging insistently at her sleeve, spoke up, “I’m so sorry!” She giggled as the group managed to get the loud one herded back into the bar. “You probably get that a lot. Please don’t bother joining this party, it’s going to be a mess and you seem nice. Miki’s drunk, but she has a point - we’ll all be jealous of whatever girl you end up with!”

Bakura knew he was blushing now and gave an awkward wave as she stumbled back into the bar behind the rest of her friends. He was almost certain he heard Miki’s overly loud voice saying ‘ _Seriously, how the hell is he single?’_

Face hot from embarrassment, Bakura hurried away along the sidewalk. They must have been drunk. Being attractive was Sebastian’s job; Bakura had always kept himself in the background while Sebi dragged them out to get enough compliments to build up his ego. Sebi had offered him plenty of advice on how to _become_ attractive, but it wasn’t like Bakura _wanted to be_. Flustered, he kept walking as the crowd thinned around him. It was better if people weren’t staring, anyways. After Miki’s assessment, he almost felt as though everyone would be checking to see if she was right.

After another block on autopilot, he realized he was the only person on the street. He had passed entirely out of the entertainment district and into a residential area he didn’t recognize. Bakura knew that it would be posh since he had been travelling north from Ryou’s neighborhood this whole time. There would be a park coming up soon, and across from that would be Kaiba Corporation: A thirty minute walk from Ryou’s apartment, or a twenty minute subway ride from his own apartment. By Bakura’s standards he was out in the rich people boonies. His best bet would be to cut his losses and cross the park to the subway station he was already planning on using for his job.

Except.

Except, of course, now that he thought about it, Bakura had been given an address and an open invitation to an apartment in this neighborhood.

 

* * *

 

 

Malik’s building had a doorman. Said doorman had begrudgingly let Bakura enter the lobby despite his _everything_ , but was standing threateningly close behind him as Bakura tried to buzz Malik’s apartment.

It occurred to Bakura that it probably would have been easier to set a paper towel dispenser on fire in the ground floor bathroom and force Malik to evacuate the building than to navigate the correct protocol for getting into a high-end apartment.

Bakura swore under his breath just as the speakers cracked to life, a drowsy-sounding Malik on the other end, “Uh, yeah, what’s up?”

“It’s Bakura.” He leaned with an air of confidence against the wall next to the speaker, maintaining eye contact with the doorman.

“Bakura?” There was a pause, and despite his relaxed demeanor Bakura’s pulse rose higher than he’d thought it could possibly go. “You didn’t text- I wasn’t expecting- do you need something?”

He stared at the doorman, who still seemed skeptical but at least had proof Bakura _knew_ someone in the building.

  
“I was in the neighborhood. Are you bored?”

“Oh!” the speaker clicked off for a second, but Malik seemed to realize he’d abandoned it and it came back on moments later. “Yes! Come on up! I didn’t mean it like that, this is great, I thought- Don’t worry, tell them to let you up.”

Wary, the doorman led him to the elevator as it slid silently open, and glared back at Bakura as it slid closed. “I’m not his dealer!” Bakura barely had time to recover his posture when the doors slid open again. “Fuck.”

Malik, still leaning against the call button, watched with amusement as Bakura exited the lift. “It’s the same as the one that gets Kaiba to his office in less than thirty seconds, and I’m only on the twelfth floor. Faster than the stairs to your apartment, but less time for fun than the one in my last building.”

He was wrapped in a fuzzy purple robe, and Bakura was distracted wondering whether there was anything else underneath it. When he noticed that he had been staring, Bakura jolted his head around to look at anything else, and realized that he was already standing in Malik’s home - There was no hall separating the twelfth floor apartments. He didn’t see Malik’s shoes sitting around anywhere, but Bakura still hurried to kick his shoes off and leave them against the wall where he figured they wouldn’t be in the way. His toes sank into plush white carpeting so cozy he felt the urge to lay down and roll around on it. “You own the entire twelfth floor?”

“And the thirteenth, which is why I bought this unit.” Malik led him deeper into the apartment, where it opened into a split level. There wasn’t much to the thirteenth floor, just a balcony leading into a pair of doors, leaving open space to make the lower floor seem huge. “Bed and bath up there, main living quarters down here.”

Bakura sat down on the bottom step of the _goddamn spiral staircase_ to the second level and stared. The lights of Domino City shone through the large windows that made up the entire far wall of the apartment. The furniture was mostly soft cream and white shades, probably annoying to clean, with golden accents here and there. An open kitchen on one end, all gleaming marbled granite and bright silver modern appliances covered in electronic displays. There were houseplants all over – orchids in golden planters, palms in large clay vases, ivy curling down from planters attached to the ceiling. With the effort of several lamps and overhead lights the room was bright, but Bakura imagined it would be brilliant in the daytime with sunlight streaming in.

 “So uh. You’ve seen my apartment.”

Malik laughed and leaned against the railing next to Bakura, “I don’t care what kind of apartment you can afford. This isn’t for showing off, I just know I like luxury and can pay for it. Isis is a genius with the stock market, and regardless of whether I earned them my fortunes are better spent than saved. Consider this a perk, not a challenge.”

Bakura propped his elbows behind him on the stairs and considered Malik for a moment. Something in his face seemed brighter, and it took him a moment to realize that Malik wasn’t wearing the kohl Bakura was used to seeing him in.

“You didn’t lie to me last night.”

Malik’s eyebrow twitched a little at the change in subject, but his composure remained casual otherwise, “I’m sorry?”

“I talked to my friend Mai today, and she said that your sister worries because you’re a liar. She told me you only like pretty men who think your name is Namu. I already knew you were Malik, so you didn’t have the chance to lie about that, but you told me the truth about your family anyways. I ended up here because I want to know why.”

“Ah.” Malik motioned for Bakura to move over on the step, and then sat down next to him. He turned his head away and stared out at the city, leaving Bakura to stare at him in profile. “I didn’t tell you the whole truth, but yes, I told you the truth about myself. You were-” he stopped and stared at his nails for a moment that dragged on so long Bakura was about ready to intervene, but continued, “you were very open about yourself, and I suspect the wine was stronger than I’m used to. It made me want to try honesty, and I already knew you could ask my sister later, so I thought it might be embarrassing if you found out I had lied.”

“I guess I was pretty drunk too.” Bakura brought his knees up to his chest and curled around himself. “I’m sorry if last night was weird.”

“Oh,” Malik finally turned away from the window to look back at him. “It wasn’t, though.” Bakura heard him shift, and suddenly felt hot breath on his ear, “It was refreshing after so many pretty men doing the same old tricks while calling me _Namu_. You’re adorable.”

His stomach flipped, and an electric charge ran the length of Bakura’s body. He met Malik’s heavy gaze, and in a sudden rush of adrenaline pushed him into the soft carpeted stairs and locked their lips together.

Malik arched along the stairs gracefully enough, but laughed and pushed Bakura back up and away from him. “Too many sharp angles. Couch? Bed?”


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This whole chapter is pretty much NSFW. You don't *really* need it for plot, I would say, if you want to skip over it.   
> Otherwise: lesbian writes her first ever smut involving body parts she's never seen, never had, and has no interest in. Have fun!

“I just realized I’m still wearing the same pair of boxers.”

Bakura had followed Malik up the spiral stairs, dumping his jacket somewhere along the way, and found himself sprawled inelegantly on the biggest bed he had ever seen. Malik’s bedroom was a soft and warm sort of bright, with wooden furniture and more clutter than the rest of the apartment. The huge silky duvet cover underneath Bakura had a gold and purple floral print, and he was starting to make some guesses about Malik’s favorite colors.

“I stand by what I said about your boxers. Haven’t found a pair yet that didn’t look sexy enough on the floor.” Malik walked to his desk and started rooting around in his drawer, “I don’t want to make assumptions, but I have lube and condoms.”

_Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes._

The cold ball of fear that had been haunting him for months was insistent, though. _You push too hard, you expect too much, what you are isn’t normal and you can’t expect as much from him_.

Bakura buried his face in the soft bedding, “Am I pushing you too far?”

He heard Malik sigh and shut the drawer, and felt the bed sink as he sat down on it moments later. “I lead you up to my bedroom and offer you condoms, and you’re asking if _I’m_ uncomfortable with what’s happening? I’m happy putting pants on and watching a movie downstairs, if that’s what you want. I already told you I think you’re an interesting person, this doesn’t have to move quickly just because I’m used to moving quickly.”

“I barged in uninvited. This is about what you want.”

Malik patted the back of Bakura’s head, “This is about no-homo with the moped, isn’t it? You don’t think anyone would actually want to seduce you.”

Bakura rolled over so he could stare up into Malik’s eyes. There was a focus there, and an attentiveness he didn’t remember seeing in Sebi. It gave him a rush he enjoyed, one that made it easier to play along, “You’re _seducing_ me?” Malik was casting himself as a pursuer, rather than a tolerater, of Bakura’s affection. A grin cut across his face, and Bakura licked his lower lip just to keep his jaw from locking up that way. “Let’s say it’s working, what would you want?”

The fingers in his hair tightened into a firm grip, “Ideally? You: naked, sweating and teaching me every curse word Japanese has, with your legs spread as far as they’ll go.”

Bakura relaxed his body in a long stretch against the sheets, giving Malik free reign to pull at his hair. “Completely naked, right now?”

“Yes.” The word came as a deep and breathy hiss. Malik yanked Bakura up into a sitting position, and leaned down to kiss him hard. When Bakura was able to react enough to grab at his shoulders for support, Malik dropped him and walked back over to the drawer.

He hit a few switches and the lights dimmed, the light coming in from under the door shutting off as well. _Rich bastard could turn off his whole apartment from one spot in his bedroom_.

Bakura scrambled to pulls his clothes off while Malik was busy, tossing them in a pile off to the side where his offending two day old boxers couldn’t bother anyone. The bedsheets were heaven against his naked skin, and he couldn’t help but roll over onto his stomach, giggling to himself and sliding his palms along the material.

He settled to lazily stroking at the fabric and watching Malik check something on his phone.

“Did you need one, or did you want to- hm. Uke?”

_Oh shit, he was searching translations online_. Bakura laughed. “Haven’t done it the other way, good enough on the bottom this time.”

Malik tapped at his phone again, “…blowjob?”

“Gave and got a few in high school, never with Sebi, he thought it was gross.”

Malik glanced over, one eyebrow raised in confusion, “I meant did you want one for a- blowjob, but really?”

Bakura groaned. Was it really that weird? “Yeah, didn’t even want me giving any to him. But I remember condoms tasting like shit. It’s up to you, but it’s been six months since we broke up, and uh-” Bakura tried to do some quick math, and was slapped in the face once again with how badly he had messed up with Sebi. “Close to a year and a half since I’ve had sex. I’m clean. Large, though, at least by the ones here in Japan.”  

He shoved his face back into the sheets when he saw Malik’s surprised expression stretch further up his face. Why the hell did he think he could keep up with a literal god of anonymous sex?

There was more rustling in the drawers, and then Malik was climbing back up into the bed next to him. He ran a finger down Bakura’s spine, causing him to turn his head and look at him.

“Am I supposed to be disappointed that nobody else is good enough for you?”

“I don’t really like people.”

Malik laughed, “I can barely stand anyone.” He dropped down to lay on his back next to Bakura, “It’s been a long time since I liked someone I slept with.”

Bakura slithered up to rest on Malik’s chest, reaching down and yanking the belt of his robe undone. One of his legs rested between Malik’s, and he ran lazy fingers up and over his skin, pushing the robe down off of his shoulders. After a moment spent squeezing the hard muscle of his free bicep, Bakura nodded, “I think I can tolerate you.”

Just as Bakura moved to kiss him, Malik rolled the both of them, pressing Bakura into the mattress and bit down hard on his lower lip. Bakura hitched up into him in response, shuddering as the movement pulled his growing erection against warm skin. He curled his fingers up in the soft hair at the base of Malik’s skull and pulled him in insistently, delighted when it only took a few sloppy open-mouthed kisses for Malik to take the invitation to slide his tongue in.

With the warmth and weight of a body pressing him into such a soft bed, Bakura was content to let the moment last forever. There was some jostling as Malik worked his robe off and tossed it to the side, but each awkward bump registered as just more delicious contact in Bakura’s nerves. He hissed in frustration when Malik finally disengaged, pouting when his attempts to tug the other back down were laughed at.

Malik wagged an eyebrow, and held the bottle of lube up where he could see it. It took a moment to register, at which point Bakura fell back and covered his burning face with his hands, nodding vigorously so that Malik understood he should definitely keep going.

There was more laughter as he shifted his weight off of Bakura’s pinned leg. When Malik started to lift it out of the way, Bakura brought the leg up and rested it on his shoulder. It gave him the confidence to put his hands back down and wink at Malik, who rolled his eyes and coated his middle finger in lube.

Bakura expected him to jab it in quickly like Sebi always did, in a hurry to get the dirtiest part of the experience over with. Instead, Malik carefully worked the outer edge, turning his head to patiently press a few kisses into Bakura’s knee as he waited for him to adjust.

It was one thing to mess with his own asshole during masturbation. It had never crossed his mind that somebody else could make prep work an enjoyable part of the sex act itself.

The gentle prodding made him want more, and he gripped tighter around Malik’s back with his leg in order to hitch himself up against the finger. Malik complied, wiggling it further in just as gingerly.

Bakura let himself relax into the odd calm of the moment – the soft wet noises and pressure, the hot breath on his knee, the gorgeous statue of a man sitting there making an effort to make him feel good. He liked the sight of his own dark leg wrapped over Malik’s bronze shoulder; it belonged in the picture in a way he hadn’t considered his own body should belong before.

“Add another one.”

More lube and then Malik worked the second finger in, faster than the first, “You’ve been quiet.”

Bakura laughed at that, and then shuddered as it caused him to clench pleasantly around the fingers in him. “You’re not bad at this.”

“I try.”

“Shit,” Bakura curled in on himself as Malik prodded at just the right spot, grabbing at the sheets on either side for balance.

“There we go.” Malik shuffled further down the bed and grabbed Bakura’s cock with his free hand. Bakura tried to watch as he licked up the shaft, but his eyes squeezed shut on their own, and he focused on the feel of it instead.

There was a short break in sensation as Malik lubed up a third finger, and then he was working it in and taking Bakura’s cock into his mouth at the same time.

Long animal moans slipped free as Bakura tried to push into all of it as hard as he could. The pleasure built too fast, “Fuck, Malik-”

He managed to look down, and Malik _winked_ at him as he stayed put and swallowed. Bakura’s head fell back as he laughed, tingling and boneless and content with the world.

Malik crawled out from under his leg and moved up alongside Bakura, who grabbed at his face and immediately started kissing him, not caring that he could taste his own spunk in the other’s mouth.

It didn’t bother him that Malik looked smug when he pulled back. Bakura felt giddy, and just wanted to run his hands all over him. He took a moment to just let them wander as he stared into those pale eyes that really did look purple with their pupils blown in the half-light.

“Fuck. Get that dick wrapped and fuck me, you prick.”

Malik licked up the side of his face in some petty form of protest, and then sat up to find the condom he’d left earlier.

Cozy in his afterglow, Bakura just sat back and watched Malik roll it down his own dick. It was hot to watch - he didn’t have much else to add to that thought. He hadn’t been in a position to get a good look at Malik yet, and realized he was longer and thicker than other guys he had been with.

Vaguely, he recalled Otogi in high school staring for a minute before swearing at him: _goddam Egyptians_.

Malik took a moment to add more lube to his asshole before getting into position between his legs, locking eyes with Bakura to get the go-ahead. When he rolled his eyes and nodded, Malik pushed in, just as careful as he had been with his fingers.

Having already spent his load, Bakura didn’t expect much more than pressure, but as Malik began rocking himself in and out he realized he was enjoying it. He shifted his shoulders a little lower to wrap his legs around Malik’s waist, and muttered a few words of encouragement, “ _There you go, you dirty bastard, just like that. Just like that._ ”

As he started moving faster, Malik’s balance seemed to falter, and he sank down against Bakura, burying his head against his neck. Bakura took it as a good cue to run his fingers through Malik’s golden hair, and hummed his approval as Malik bit down and sucked at the skin just below his jawline.

In their current position Bakura had a good view of the deep, violent scars across the top half of Malik’s back. On a whim, he dropped one of his hands lower and began to slide his fingers across the strange rough surface. Malik shuddered and let out an excited whine, so he started to knead deeper into the skin of his back. The thrusts lost their rhythm, and then Malik finished with a sharp bite lower on Bakura’s neck.

Bakura continued to stroke Malik’s hair and back as he waited for his breathing to recover. There was a strong smell of sweat between their warm bodies now, and a comfortable ache in his muscles.

With a deep inhale, Malik rose from the dead and groaned, “I hate this part.” He screwed his eyes shut and made irritated noises as he wobbled across the room and disposed of the condom.

Bakura clamped a hand over his mouth and snorted. _Sex god_ Malik was treating a bit of damp latex like some sort of toxic slug that had crawled into the bed just to spite him. “I’ll handle it next time, loser.”

“That’s right, give me the royal treatment I deserve, peasant.” Malik joined him in laughing as he flopped back down on the bed. “You’re not supposed to use the lubed ones for oral, by the way.”

“Hmm?”

Malik poked curiously at the scar running under Bakura’s eye, stretching the skin around it in some attempt to see how it moved. “You said they taste bad. That’s the pre-lubed kind.”

“Oh, fuck you.” Bakura caught Malik’s hand in his and kissed his annoying fingers, realizing a bit late that they were still sticky with lube and had recently been, well… “I want a shower.”

“Of course. I’ll go when you’re done.”

As much as he didn’t want to leave the bed or Malik, he realized he was glad to have time to wash and think by himself. They had already talked about a _next time_.

Bakura wanted a next time, and a time after that. He wanted more than that, too. He wanted to show Malik around Domino, and to introduce him to Ryou’s nerdy friends. He wanted to hear more stories about who Malik was, and to stay up late talking to him about anything that came to mind.

It felt a little like blood was rushing too fast back into an unused limb, and Bakura worried that he would open himself up again just to feel the same old pain.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Life is finally starting to be more conductive to writing again!   
> Here's a short chapter to start the swing back into the last act of the story!

Skin against skin, soft light, warmth.

Voices that sounded like home, the heavy scent of cooking that felt more like home than any breakfast he could remember.

Bakura jolted awake, fingers digging into the edge of a white leather sofa, prepared to run.

His breathing slowed as the meaning of his surroundings filtered back to him – he was in Japan, safe, in Malik Ishtar’s luxury apartment. It took several more moments of focused breathing to figure out what the panic was about. It sounded and smelled like home. Not the Bakura family home, but his first home. A home ripped violently away from him on a warm quiet morning just like this one.

He shook his head and chose to focus on the present. He was naked on Malik Ishtar’s couch. The first, because he hadn’t wanted to rummage through the apartment looking for clothes, and the second because he was neither ready to go home nor ready to spend the night in Malik Ishtar’s bed.

The blinds of the huge picture windows directly in front of him were pulled down, an obvious courtesy from his host. On the coffee table across from him Malik had left a badly hand-written note, _“Bakura, Don’t take this as weird. Your clothes were trashed and I sent them down to laundry. You can borrow mine if you need to leave right away, but here’s a bathrobe.”_

He found the robe folded neatly underneath the note, and quickly slid into it under his borrowed sheets. It was a sleek silky fabric, white with an orchid print. He felt a little ridiculous wearing something that must have come straight out of Malik’s lingerie collection for awkward morning coffee, but it was better than nothing.

Malik was chatting cheerily to his laptop in a corner of the kitchen when Bakura joined him. There was already a pot of coffee ready, and an untouched plate of beans sitting on the counter next to it.

“That’s yours,” Malik turned away from his laptop momentarily, pointing out the beans as if Bakura could have somehow missed it. Somehow Malik had already showered, dressed, done his kohl, and styled his hair. It gave Bakura the sneaking suspicion he might be a _morning person_.

An excited female voice drew him back to the computer, and they began firing back and forth in rapid Arabic once again. Bakura ignored both of them while he poured himself coffee, but couldn’t help notice when his name started to come up repeatedly.

He brought his coffee and beans over to the computer and leaned in, “Are you talking about me?”

Malik looked up as if he’d been caught in a conspiracy, and the girl started giggling. “A little bit? This is Mana.”

Mana’s hair was cut short, and she looked downright _homey_ in a frumpy bohemian top. It was clear to Bakura by the way they had been carrying on that the two were comfortable with one another, despite the fact that he couldn’t at all picture her fitting in with Malik’s fashionable high-society demeanor.

She spoke rapidly to Malik again, gesturing to Bakura. Malik laughed, argued for a moment, and then shook his head in defeat. “She wants me to tell you that she was my _girlfriend_ for the last few years.” Mana continued to stare accusingly at Malik as if she doubted he had translated the full comment, until he continued, “We covered for each other whenever we had the chance to go out with our real dates. She managed to get a job and a girlfriend in Germany last year.” She was still staring daggers when Malik glanced back to the screen, and for once he seemed a bit flustered as he muttered, “She says you’re too pretty for me.”

He grumbled something in Arabic, and then they were good naturedly arguing rapid-fire at one another again. Mana noticed somebody offscreen, and quickly waved her way out of the conversation, hanging up in a manner that Bakura assumed Malik hadn’t been ready for.

“I wouldn’t have taken you for someone with friends.”

“She needed to convince her parents that she had started seeing boys, and we got along well enough. Rishid and Isis didn’t care, but her parents- It took a long time for her to get away. We could go out to clubs together without getting as many questions as long as we acted like a couple on the street. It was a convenient arrangement. A business arrangement.”

Bakura scooped some beans into his mouth to avoid commenting. They were clearly more than _business partners_ if she still checked in on him and asked about the men he was spending time with, but if Malik wanted to play it cool he wouldn’t pester.

“What is this, anyways?”

Malik looked confused for a moment. “Ful? I assumed you would know.”

Bakura shook his head as he kept eating. Like the sound of Malik and Mana speaking Arabic, it seemed familiar but any real memories of ever having eaten it eluded him. “The first meal I can remember that wasn’t scavenged from a rubbish bin was Japanese.”

“Hmm.” Malik spun on his stool and sat with his elbows propped on the counter behind him. “I suppose if you wanted to keep visiting, I’ll have to start feeding you _all sorts of things_ in that case.” Bakura didn’t miss the way Malik managed to work his tongue around words that should have sounded perfectly casual.

Did he want to say he’d keep visiting? There was a pull in the bottom of his gut that said he should. He took another bite of breakfast, pretending to mull it over while licking the spoon clean. “Isis would be disappointed if we just sat in your apartment eating Egyptian food. Your sister wants me to teach you how we do things in Japan.”

Malik’s stare challenged Bakura to break eye contact, “My sister told me to spend more time with her coworker and his friends. She thinks Bakura _Ryou_ would be a good influence. All she knows about his bandit brother is that he’s the same age.”

“Isis should be more careful about who she tells her brother to spend time with, in that case. She should know that Bakura _Touzoku_ will probably just steal all her brother’s money and ride off on his motorcycle.” He stepped a little closer, glad to have the opportunity to lean down over Malik for once.

Malik narrowed his eyes and leaned up to bring their noses dangerously close, “You forget I have a luxury bike in storage. I love a good chase.”

Bakura broke first, laughing hard into his bowl. Probably more of a breathy giggle, but he’d never admit to that. It was inevitable - his pulse was up and it made him giddy. Malik cracked a lazy smile as he watched the fit.

The intercom buzzed, interrupting a scene Bakura wasn’t sure he would have been able to recover from naturally anyways. Malik flowed gracefully around Bakura as he stood to answer it.

“That would be your laundry. A shame, I like you in that robe. Keep it.”

It wasn’t a gift, it was an order, and Bakura didn’t mind the way it made his stomach knot up to hear it.

 

* * *

 

 

His forearms were already stained in bright cadmium reds and yellows. Bakura scraped furiously in heavy chalk lines across sheets of sketch paper. It had taken him nearly an hour to travel home from Malik’s apartment, not sure of the subway route. In that time, bright and beautiful images began to blossom in the back of his mind, and Bakura knew what stories he needed to tell in the murals.

His stereo cracked out an album Malik claimed to love, the lyrics as foreign as any of the English rap Bakura would normally be blasting while drawing. He didn’t know whether he particularly liked the band, but in his short time with Malik he felt a yearning to remember the country of his birth.

Shoved down deep enough that he didn’t have to think on it much, Bakura was also warming to the idea of dressing Malik up in Yukata and taking him to festivals.

Sketch after sketch overtook the floor as Bakura planned out the best way to show what he needed to in his murals. It didn’t matter whether anyone else understood or even liked them, the story would be his. A messy blend of pain and fortune against the backdrop of two worlds that couldn’t look less alike.


End file.
